


Good Enough

by Love (crazylove)



Series: Better Days [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Bulimia, Christmas, Depression, Disordered Eating, During covid, Eating Disorders, Gen, NCT 2020, NCT U, OT23 (NCT), Smoking, nct 127, present day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28237896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazylove/pseuds/Love
Summary: Jungwoo doesn't mean to screw up. It just keeps happening. Everyone keeps talking about him behind his back. Jungwoo wants to make it stop. What if Jungwoo could reverse his mistakes?Jungwoo thinks he figured out a way how.OrJungwoo slips further and further down the rabbit hole of an eating disorder.Trigger Warning: graphic depiction of an eating disorder (Bulimia)
Series: Better Days [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123433
Comments: 37
Kudos: 234





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW:
> 
> COVID-19  
> Smoking  
> Self-induced vomiting

Jungwoo took a deep breath and winced, even before the long swab even came near him.

“Relax.” The nurse looked over and gave him a look that made Jungwoo whither backwards against his chair. He kept his lips pressed tightly together, suppressing another cough. He tried to look brave but it didn’t matter. When she shoved the nasal swab up his nose, so far it felt like it was going to go straight through his brain, he was left sputtering, tearing up and snot running down his face as usual.

The nurse gave him a tissue without any comforting words. Jungwoo wiped his eyes and took a deep breath. It ended up with him coughing again.

He looked up in time to see the nurse giving him that same look. It was a look that said he was wasting her time. Jungwoo blinked and looked down.

“Look,” the nurse said. “You probably don’t have the virus. But it’s winter and you’re doing stupid things. Lay off the smoking.”

Jungwoo looked up at her, sheepishly, before nodding. She waved him off and he got up to leave, hurrying out of the medical unit. It was never good to be there. Jungwoo had already been there too much.

His first thought was to go outside but then he tripped over Jaehyun’s legs, stumbling forward.

“Hey,” Jaehyun said, looking up at him. “I was going to get up but then you were coming too fast.”

Jungwoo felt flustered as he looked down at his roommate. Then he reached down to offer his hand. Jaehyun grabbed it and Jungwoo pulled him up to his feet. As usual, Jaehyun looked stylish in nicely fitted dark jeans and a fuzzy gray sweater. Jungwoo was wearing track pants and a too big green hoodie.

“Manager hyung said I had to get tested,” Jungwoo mumbled, stuffing his hands in his hoodie’s kangaroo pocket.

Jaehyun nodded as they started walking down the hall. “I figured that’s why you were running away from there.”

Jungwoo wiped his face again in disgust. “So sick of this,” he mumbled.

“Are you sick?” Jaehyun asked.

“I don’t think so.” Jungwoo said, wiping his hand on the side of his pants. “The nurse said that she thinks it’s because of… smoking.”

“Yeah…” Jaehyun said. “Maybe.”

Jungwoo bit the bottom of his lip and looked at Jaehyun as they reach the end of the hallway and stood in front of the elevator.

“Where are you going?” Jaehyun asked.

“Wait,” Jungwoo said as it finally dawned on him. “Why were you sitting in the hallway?”

“I heard you in there. I had to get my test too.” Jaehyun shrugged a shoulder with a little smile. “So I waited for you.”

Jungwoo smiled and told himself to relax. Everything was fine. He wasn’t going to let one grumpy old lady snapping at him and shoving a swab into his brain ruin his day. Rooming with Jaehyun was one of the best things that had happened to him over the past year. He enjoyed becoming closer to his hyung.

“Thanks,” Jungwoo murmured. Then he remembered the original question and laughed a little. “I’m not doing anything. I don’t think.”

“Let me treat you to lunch,” Jaehyun said, slinging an arm around Jungwoo’s shoulders as he pressed the elevator button.

“Where?”

“The cafeteria?” Jaehyun laughed, pushing the right button as the door slipped shut behind them once they stepped inside.

“So hyung is going to treat me to the place we eat for free?” Jungwoo widened his eyes as if he was really impressed and then burst out laughing. “I’m so impressed.”

They both got out, giggling. It was an awkward time to eat so the place was pretty empty. Jaehyun got a bowl of ramen and Jungwoo picked out fried chicken, kimbap and kimchi fried rice. Jungwoo noticed how Jaehyun paused to drink a glass of water before eating, but Jungwoo tucked right in.

“How’s filming, hyung?” Jungwoo asked, mouth full. Jaehyun stirred his noodles and took a bite, slurping them up delicately.

“It’s busy,” Jaehyun said. “I have a shirtless scene tomorrow.”

Jungwoo’s eyes widened and he tipped his head to the side. “Oh. You nervous?”

Jaehyun shrugged. “It’s my third. But I want to make sure I’m in good condition.”

“You’re always in good condition,” Jungwoo murmured. He saw Jaehyun when he got dressed in the morning. His hyung had nothing to worry about when it came to looking good on camera.

“They say that being dehydrated makes your muscles pop,” Jaehyun said. “They told me after the second time. I think it’s a hint. So I’m not going to eat or drink after this.”

Jungwoo blinked, watching Jaehyun slurp up another mouthful. “You’re not eating?”

“It’s only for like half a day,” Jaehyun said. “No big deal.”

Jungwoo looked down at his lunch. It would be a big deal for him. He could never live without food for a whole day. It didn’t matter anyway. He wasn’t going to get a shirtless gig like Jaehyun or any gig really. The thought made Jungwoo frown so he took another big bite of his chicken.

“So you’re gone all day tomorrow?” Jungwoo asked.

“Yeah,” Jaehyun said. “I’m so glad we finished early today to get our tests. I’m going to work out and then relax. Because tomorrow it’s so busy.”

Jungwoo nodded. They had final rehearsals for the Beyond Live concert all day. Jaehyun was going to miss half of it but that was no big deal. Jungwoo admired the way his hyung could just jump into things without missing a beat. Jungwoo felt like sometimes it took all his brain power just to remember the dance to one song. He was excited for the Work It stage but nervous for reasons he didn’t entirely understand. But he knew he wanted to really impress at this concert. For weeks, he’d been feeling like he was on the edge of something, like maybe a breakthrough. Maybe his status within the group would finally start to rise like he wanted. But the thought of failing was terrifying. That was probably why he’d been smoking more…

Which he had to stop now.

Jungwoo reached in his fanny pack and took a deep breath. Then he pulled out his cigarettes and handed the pack to Jaehyun.

“I’m gonna quit.”

Jaehyun took them with a bright smile. “A present for me?” he joked, lamely. “You shouldn’t have.”

Jungwoo wrinkled his nose with a laugh. “Yah!” he protested. “Just throw them away for me.”

Jaehyun tossed the cigs with perfect form into the nearest trash can. Nothing but net. He gave Jungwoo a cocky grin, just as their phones buzzed at the same time. Jungwoo checked the message.

“Negative,” he read. Jaehyun was reading his results at the same time.

“Put me in the negative zone,” Jaehyun said. He took a deep breath through his nose and let it out noisily. “I can smell everything!”

Jungwoo laughed. For some reason, testing negative for COVID made him hungrier, so he got up and ordered another round.

*

It was crazy with the 23 of them. Well, 22, minus Jaehyun. And someone else was missing actually… Jungwoo couldn’t concentrate enough to tell. But not Jisung, who was sitting on the side quietly, under a blanket. Not any members of the NCT U Work it Unit, who were clowning around in various parts of the practice room. Taeyong was talking to Doyoung about something that had them both looking serious. Mark was practicing rapping in the mirror. Most of the WayV members were sitting in a circle, looking at something on a couple of phones. The 5-Dream members were doing some work over on the side with their choreographer. It was loud in the room and something about it made Jungwoo’s pulse beat a little faster. Jungwoo had lots of friends within the team—he knew it—but that didn’t stop him from feeling confusingly alone sometimes.

“Hey!” Lucas said, deep voice booming beside him all of a sudden. “What are you doing?”

Jungwoo looked over at him and grinned. It really sucked that it was so hard to catch up with Lucas when he was doing a million different schedules, but they’d been able to hang out a little more lately with all the music show performances.

“You wanna…?” Lucas held up two fingers in front of his lips. Jungwoo glanced around quickly. The smoking part wasn’t actually a secret, he just didn’t know how they were going to sneak out of there when group rehearsal was due to start any minute.

“I quit,” Jungwoo said, cringing a bit. Lucas wasn’t the type to say anything, but he didn’t want to look uncool to him.

“Really?” Lucas said, eyes wide, making him look more puppy like than Jungwoo thought he was even capable of. “Why?”

“It was making me cough and I had to take a COVID test, so the nurse told me lay off.”

Lucas shook his head. “Fucking COVID…” he muttered. Then he shrugged. “Keep me company?”

Jungwoo wanted to but… he looked around again. Nobody was paying attention to him. Fuck it. So he nodded and followed Lucas outside. They stood in an alley against the side of the building, wearing nothing but their t-shirts and hoodies in the frigid winter wind. Jungwoo had no idea how much that damn cigarette kept him warm until he was standing out there, next to Lucas without one.

“If you get taller than me, I’m gonna cut you,” Lucas joked, taking a deep drag. Jungwoo hadn’t had any cravings before this, but now he was reconsidering his decision.

“I think I’m already there.” Jungwoo stood on his tip toes. Lucas pretended to karate chop his neck and they both laughed.

“Hey,” Lucas said. He grabbed Jungwoo’s shirt and pulled it up. Jungwoo yelped, feeling the rush of cold, and jerked away.

“Where’s your abs?” Lucas asked. “They painted them on?”

It took Jungwoo a moment to realize what he said and then he blushed. He adjusted his hoodie again and shrugged. “They were real,” he finally said.

“Jungwoo can’t stop eating,” Lucas teased. “Jungwoo can’t keep abs!” He held up his cigarette with a smirk. “I thought this helped.”

“It does,” Jungwoo admitted.

“I don’t know if you should quit,” Lucas said. “You love food.”

Jungwoo bit the inside of his cheek. Lucas had helped him a lot when he was getting ready for the Vogue Korea shoot. The smoking did help, appetite-wise and anxiety wise. Jungwoo had been proud of his abs. But it was hard to keep them up and sometimes Jungwoo didn’t want to work out, he wanted to go to bed. He wanted to have dessert. He didn’t wanna freeze his ass off and not eat or drink for a day.

But then again, guys like Lucas and Jaehyun were the ones who got casted in dramas and special groups. Guys like Jungwoo—who didn’t have abs or too many stand out talents besides being really silly on camera—got to stay on the sidelines and pray they were put in a featured unit every now and then pray again that they didn’t royally screw up.

Jungwoo’s hands were shaking and it wasn’t just from the cold.

Jungwoo returned to glares from Yuta and Hendery. Johnny hurried over to him.

“Hey, where were you?” he asked in a low voice, clasping a hand on Jungwoo’s shoulder. “Ouch, you’re cold.”

“Out with Lucas…” Jungwoo mumbled, looking at Yuta again.

“We missed our turn,” Johnny said. “So we have to stay until the end now.”

“I had plans,” Yuta said, before turning and going to the water station.

Jungwoo scrubbed a hand through his hair, feeling guilty. Johnny didn’t look mad but he looked disappointed.

“I was texting you,” Johnny said. Jungwoo glanced over to where his fanny pack lay in a random corner. His phone was inside, permanently on silent.

“Sorry,” Jungwoo said. Johnny shrugged and wandered over to a mirror across the practice room. When Jungwoo caught Hendery’s eye, he just shrugged. Then he turned around and left too.

Lucas was across the room, sitting with WinWin and Mark, talking about something that had him waving his hands and laughing, so he wasn’t in trouble with anyone. Jungwoo suppressed a groan and then went to sit down somewhere, alone.

Rehearsal was long, grueling as usual. They went through the 127 songs and practiced Resonance quite a few times. They didn’t get to break for dinner until after 8pm and most everyone was free to leave then. Only the 127 and Work It unit members needed to stay on afterward for final rehearsals.

Jungwoo was starving by their dinner break. But before he could leave the room with everyone else, Taeyong called him over.

Jungwoo froze where he stood and took a moment to gulp. Then he slowly turned around and headed over to Taeyong.

“Hi…” He muttered, stepping over with his head bowed. It didn’t matter that Jungwoo had a few inches on him. When Taeyong stared him down like this, Jungwoo felt two inches tall.

“Are you okay?” Taeyong asked.

Jungwoo blinked, taken aback. He covered his mouth, suppressing a cough, and then nodded.

“Manager said you got a COVID test yesterday.”

Jungwoo smiled, weakly. “It’s negative,” he said.

“Have you been anywhere?”

Jungwoo shook his head, quickly. They were on a quarantine outside of schedules. They technically weren’t supposed to hang out at each other’s dorms but that rule had been broken quite a few times.

“Just asking because you seem distracted,” Taeyong said. “We were looking for you and we couldn’t find you.”

Jungwoo opened his mouth but closed it again. Excuses didn’t really matter. He’d screwed up. So he just looked down and nodded.

“I’m sorry, hyung,” he said, adding a deep bow. But when he came back, Taeyong didn’t look satisfied.

“It’s up to each of us to keep ourselves in top physical condition,” Taeyong said. “So we don’t let out team members down. You need to take care of yourself. You also need to remember that you have a responsibility to all of us.”

Jungwoo nodded so hard, he felt dizzy. He didn’t know what to say.

“Please don’t be late again,” Taeyong said. Then he turned on his heel and left.

Shit. Jungwoo grabbed his chest. Suddenly, it hurt like Taeyong had punched him there. He tried to take a deep breath but he couldn’t. Instead, he doubled over coughing. And for a scary moment, he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop coughing, couldn’t catch his breath. His first thought was that the COVID test was wrong. His second thought was that his chest was going to crack right in two and he could see himself face planting on the hardwood floor, unmoving.

“Jungwoo?” Jaehyun grabbed his shoulders, pulling him back against his chest and holding him there. “Jungwoo, are you okay?”

When had Jaehyun gotten there? Jungwoo noticed that Jaehyun smelled like mint and for some reason, that allowed him to take a deep gasp of a breath.

“What’s wrong?” Jaehyun said. “Are you okay? Breathe, Jungwoo.”

Jungwoo felt himself shaking in Jaehyun’s arms. But he closed his eyes and focused on Jaehyun’s scent and his chest opened a little wider. He was still coughing but able to take a breath. And then another. A deeper breath as Jaehyun instructed him to breath.

But his heart felt like it was going to pound right out of his chest.

“Jungwoo…” Jaehyun said, softly. “Breathe…”

Jungwoo took another breath, feeling tears sting the corner of his eyes like when he got the test. But that was stupid. What was there to cry over? Instead, he bit his lip and through his ragged breaths, he started to laugh.

Because what else could he do? Not this again.

He couldn’t go through this again.

“Jungwoo!” Jaehyun squeezed his shoulders. “Talk to me… are you okay?”

Jungwoo forced himself to stand up straight so he was at the same height as his hyung. He could feel that his face was red and possibly wet. He wiped his face quickly and took another deep breath. He could hide it. He had done it before.

“Yeah, yeah…” Jungwoo finally said. “I just… choked—”

“You’re not smoking again?” Jaehyun asked. “Because I think it’s good you quit.”

“I did,” Jungwoo said, clenching his jaw. Although, he wasn’t sure it was a good idea like Jaehyun did. What was he going to do when he was on the edge like this? He knew a cigarette could calm him down. Now he didn’t know what he was supposed to do.

Except fake it.

“I’m fine,” Jungwoo said, turning around so he could look at Jaehyun fully.

Jaehyun reached out and rubbed Jungwoo’s arm. Jungwoo could tell by the look in his eyes that he wasn’t convinced.

“How was your shoot?” Jungwoo asked.

“It was fine…” Jaehyun said. Jungwoo’s eyes wandered down to Jaehyun’s shirt. He wondered how defined Jaehyun’s abs looked if he really didn’t eat or drink all day. It was probably a result that Jungwoo could never hope to achieve.

He swallowed, jealously.

“Come on.” Jaehyun took Jungwoo’s arm and began leading him from the practice room. “We need dinner. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Jungwoo nodded like he always did.

Dinner was in a huge conference room, where the buffet stretched across a tables on both sides of the room. The room was noisy, built more for important meetings, but the NCT members had no problems turning it into their own personal cafeteria. Sitting on the tables, on top of the chairs, on the floor, everything went. Haechan was using a whiteboard as a table.

Nobody seemed to care about Jungwoo’s late appearance. Taeyong was eating with a manager on the far end of the conference table. Jaehyun grabbed a water bottle. Jungwoo took inventory of all the food and then set about filling his plate.

Jungwoo wasn’t in the mood to be funny. It didn’t matter because people didn’t try to talk to him while he was eating. So he kept eating. Besides, he loved food and it kept his mind off of things. As soon as his plate was empty, he got another one. And even after he felt full, he got another one. Even when he was really full, he crammed a slice of pizza in his mouth. He could feel food piled in his stomach up to his throat.

Honestly, it wasn’t a bad feeling.

All chatter stopped when someone flashed the lights. One of the concert directors announced that everyone who was dismissed could leave, but the call time for rehearsals the next day was noon. It didn’t take more than two minutes for most of the guys to scurry out. Jungwoo swallowed his last bite of rice.

“Okay, I’ll take pity on you,” the director said. “We will only practice Work it and Kick it. Work it will go first.”

“Yes!” Hendery whooped, jumping up.

“We will start in twenty minutes,” the director said, before leaving the room. The remaining members started throwing food away, heading back to the practice room.

“I need to stretch,” Jaehyun said, getting up from the table. He’d sat next to Jungwoo, mostly in silence, but Jungwoo did appreciate it. His roommate clapped him on the shoulder and then left the room.

Jungwoo finished his food, avoiding Yuta’s eyes as he passed.

Jungwoo leaned back in his seat and took a deep breath. Or tried to. But he wasn’t breathing well again, this time for a different reason.

He was extremely full.

Jungwoo rubbed his stomach, watching the others slowly file out of the room. His stomach felt like a basketball, tight and hard, filled to its limit. Why did he get some carried away? Probably because when he was eating, he didn’t think and he didn’t like his brain right now.

When Jungwoo got up, he felt rooted to the floor. His body didn’t want to move. He felt like gravity was two times more powerful than it usually was.

He couldn’t practice like this.

That same feeling came to his chest again, like a bird was trapped in there. Something that fluttered and hurt and wanted to claw out from the inside out. That feeling when his lungs wouldn’t work. When his mind got stuck in his endless loop of you’re-going-nowhere and you’re-not-good-enough.

Jungwoo couldn’t deal with this. He couldn’t screw up again. He needed to move.

He needed to get rid of this.

Jungwoo remembered a joke that Yuta made about him. Saying that he loved to eat so much he would eat while throwing up. Jungwoo thought the joke was kind of lame at the time, but afterward he thought about it more. Did people really think he was so greedy… and gross? The more he thought about it, the more it bothered him. So he never forgot it.

But now it gave him an idea.

Jungwoo didn't have much time and he didn’t know what he was doing. But he didn’t think it could be too hard. No one was in the bathroom and even crouching in front of the toilet hurt. He shouldn’t have eaten that much. But Jungwoo did a lot of things he shouldn’t do.

At least he could turn back time on this one.

Jungwoo screwed up his face, thinking about his COVID test the previous day. The swab had gone so far up his nose. He would probably need to stick his finger down his throat that far if he wanted anything to happen. Push himself past his limit.

Jungwoo took a deep breath. His heart was racing, but it felt better than it was pounding from an actual problem.

He could do this. He had to do this.

He took his hoodie off and set it beside him. He removed his watch. His stomach churned in anticipation. That seemed to help when he finally stuck his hand in his mouth, pushing his finger, down, down, until he gagged hard, but nothing happened.

Jungwoo checked his watch. Fifteen minutes.

He had to go further.

This time he squeezed his eyes together tight and really plunged his finger down his throat. Just like that stupid swab. He wasn’t going to stop until he hit what he needed to.

He was surprised when it worked, but it wasn’t pretty throwing up all over his hand and the seat because he wasn’t positioned well at all. Then nothing else happened. Not until he gagged himself with his puke still warm all over his hand and the combination of all of that caused him to vomit hard. He barely had time to gasp before his body heaved again. It looked like some of the food hadn’t even digested yet. Realizing that, Jungwoo threw up again. There were tears running down his cheeks, vomit all over his hand, undigested rice floating in front of him, the thick smell of vomit filling the air.

For the first time all day, Jungwoo felt like he did something right.

He gripped the toilet seat and threw up again. His stomach felt lighter and his chest wasn’t threatening to explode. His heart was still racing but it was more like he had run a mile, not like he was on the verge of something he didn’t want to think about.

He could do this.

Jungwoo scrambled out of the bathroom, washed his hands, rinsed his mouth, splashed water over his face and slicked his hair back. He thought he should feel grosser about this, but he didn’t. The truth was, he felt good. He finally felt like he could breathe.

Maybe he’d finally figured out something that could work for him.

Jungwoo made it back to the practice room with a couple minutes to spare. He found his fanny pack in the corner and pulled out his phone. He ignored all the missed texts and calls from Johnny earlier. They didn’t bother him anymore.

Instead, he opened his KakaoTalk conversation with Jaehyun.

_Hey_ , he typed. _Can I have a mint?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jungwoo does his best to enjoy Christmas, but it's not the same.
> 
> TW:  
> self-induced vomiting

As usual, the 10th floor was running late. But if anyone asked Jungwoo (which he didn’t think anyone would) he had their excuse ready. It totally wasn’t their fact. They were practically out of the door before Johnny barged in for a fashion evaluation.

“The theme is ugly Christmas sweaters!” Johnny reminded them as they all sat on the couches in the living room. Jungwoo was squished between Taeil and Jaehyun. “Let’s see them.”

One by one, they stood up and showed Johnny their outfit. Yuta was wearing a white hoodie with pictures of the Grinch all over it. This made Johnny crack up.

“You pass!” he declared.

Mark showed off his sweater that was three sizes too big, bright red, with embroidered Christmas lights running all over it. It was a mess.

“Mark, did you rob an old lady?” Johnny demanded.

“My grandma gave it to me.” Mark tugged the sweater, looking down. “I think.”

“Okaaaaaaaay… it’ll work.” Johnny made Mark find a rubber band. He tied the sweater up in the back so it almost looked like it fit Mark in an oversized way instead of drowning him. Jungwoo was a little impressed by the transformation.

“Okay, next!” Johnny barked.

Jaehyun stood up to show off his sweater. It was black, with a Christmas tree taking up most of the front and a big Santa face on the back. Somehow, it didn’t look ridiculous on him. It looked cool. It was the perfect fit. Jungwoo was jealous of the way Jaehyun could fill out a sweater like that.

Johnny gave Jaehyun a thumbs up. “Very classy!” he declared. “And dare I say… sexy?”

“Thanks, John,” Jaehyun said demurely, before sitting down. Then Jungwoo looked between them and realized that Johnny was wearing the same thing, only his had Santa on the front and a Christmas tree on the back.

“Hey, wait!” Mark protested. “Aren’t the sweaters supposed to be, like, ugly? It’s not fair if you actually look good in it.”

“Next!” Johnny barked.

Taeil got up to show off his blue sweater with a picture of a chimney on the front where Santa was stuck, upside down. His butt was in the air and the butt flap of his red pants had come down, exposing Santa’s snowy white ass, while his legs were mid-kick, still wearing tall, black boots. The scene was surrounded by the words HO HO OH NO!

Johnny burst out laughing, so hard he doubled over and he could barely choke out his verdict.

“Oh—my—God—” Johnny gasped. Everyone was laughing. “You win.”

Taeil grinned and gave a little bow before going to sit down again.

“Dude—hyung—where’d you get that?” Mark asked, still giggling a little.

“Ebay,” Taeil said, with a straight face.

Jungwoo looked down at himself. He remembered planning this Christmas party because of Secret Santa, but he didn’t remember agreeing that everyone would go all out with their ugly Christmas sweaters. That happened to Jungwoo sometimes. He forgot stuff.

“Hey!” Johnny said and Jungwoo suddenly realized Johnny was looking his way. “Jungwoo… your turn.” Johnny wrinkled his nose. “Do you need to change?”

Jungwoo got up and stood in front of them in his green sweater and showed them the hole in the armpit.

“Ew,” Johnny said.

“It’s ugly,” Jungwoo said.

“Where’s the Christmas?”

“This is all I have…”

Johnny shook his head. “Not gonna work. Can you borrow something?”

“Uh…” Mark said. “I have—Johnny, remember that red and white sweater I had last year? You clowned me for it?”

Johnny snickered, looking over at Mark and then shook his head again. “It’ll never fit him.”

Jungwoo swallowed hard, hearing Johnny’s word. He wasn’t exactly known for being the same size as Mark, so that wasn’t new, but he wasn’t sure why it hit him so hard.

Once again, it felt like he was a failure.

“We need to improvise,” Johnny said. “Let’s get post it notes. And markers. Jungwoo, Mark, go.”

The two younger members scurried off to grab the requested materials. Then Johnny had everyone sit on the floor around the table and fill out post it notes to put on Jungwoo’s sweater.

“Anything is going to make it ugly,” Johnny said. “Just write the word ugly. But also—Christmas.”

Everyone was laughing and scribbling on bright yellow post it notes. Taeil drew a Santa. Mark drew a tree. Yuta attempted to draw a sleigh. Jaehyun drew a decent reindeer. Johnny scribbled the words UGLY and CHRISTMAS and SWEATER on a bunch of post-it notes. When Johnny said they had enough, all the other guys pressed the post-it notes all over Jungwoo. He was laughing with them, but at the same time, his face was turning slightly red.

“Success!” Johnny said, once they were done and Jungwoo was dressed like a neon post-it note moron. “Well, Jungwoo, you sure are ugly.”

Jungwoo frowned while everyone else laughed. He tried to think of a comeback but the moment passed too quickly.

“Let’s go,” Mark said. “Taeyong said the food’s getting cold.” He held up his phone.

Jungwoo’s stomach growled at just the mere mention of food. He was eager to get out of there.

They hurried down to the 5th floor after Mark grabbed his guitar. Johnny knocked loudly and yelled, “Party’s here!”

After a moment, the door flung open. Doyoung and Taeyong stood there in matching Reindeer onesies, with the hood pulled over their head so their antlers shook as they yelled, “MERRY CHRISTMAS!” Doyoung was wearing a glowing red nose.

Everyone started laughing and hugging and saying, Merry Christmas. When Jungwoo hugged Taeyong he was relieved that his hyung was no longer mad at him from when he screwed up by being late in practice a few days ago. Haechan waved as they came inside. He was wearing a sweater with a white snowman holding presents with his stick arms.

“Where did you get that?” Haechan asked, laughing as he pointed at Mark’s sweater. Mark looked offended, spreading his arms wide.

“It’s from my grandmother!”

“And what are you supposed to be?” Haechan turned to Jungwoo, looking him over with a laugh. Jungwoo looked down just as a post it note fell off him.

“He took the ugly part of ugly Christmas sweater too far,” Johnny remarked, as he passed them.

“Art project gone wrong,” Taeil remarked gravely.

Haechan picked up a post-it note from the floor and smacked it back on Jungwoo’s back with a grin.

“I think you’re gonna win, hyung!” he said, cheerfully.

Jungwoo didn’t say anything. He knew they were all joking. He didn’t know why it made him so mad.

He took a deep breath, taking in the heavenly scent of just prepared food that was waiting for them. Also, it was clear the 5th floor members had gone all out with the Christmas decorations. There were gold and silver fairy lights everywhere, even on the ceiling. The TV was playing a video of a crackling fire to classic Christmas songs. They taped wrapping papers along door frames. There was a Christmas tree in the corner of the living room, where all the Secret Santa presents were piled underneath and a poinsettia centerpiece on the dining room table, in the middle of all the food.

So much food.

“Look!” Johnny called. He pointed at a green leaf that was hanging from the kitchen doorframe. It took Jungwoo a minute to realize that it was mistletoe.

“Johnny made us,” Doyoung said.

“This is the danger zone,” Johnny declared. “Don’t stand here for too long unless you want to see… what happens.”

The guys were groaning and laughing and rolling their eyes. Jungwoo wondered for a moment, what would happen?

He glanced over at Jaehyun.

“I know it’s sad we can’t go home this Christmas,” Taeyong said, speaking to them all as they stood around the living room. “But… we hope we can have a good time today and celebrate together. With our second family.”

Everyone started clapping and Jungwoo wondered if that was true. Did the guys really want to be his second family? Because sometimes he wasn’t so sure.

He told himself to stop being so sensitive, as they began to grab plates and shuffle to the dining room.

“How do you get one of these?” Mark asked, examining his plate as he sat it down on the table. “We don’t have any in our dorm.”

“It’s called Ikea,” Johnny said. “Look it up.”

Everyone was chattering as they all sat down. Jungwoo sat with Jaehyun on one side and Doyoung on the other. Taeyong sat at the head of the table.

“I hope you like it,” Doyoung said, before they started eating. “Taeyong and I worked really hard on cooking everything.”

“It was all Doyoung,” Taeyong said, graciously. “I only helped him.”

“I helped, too!” Haechan called. “I tasted. I told them when it was gross.”

“Please enjoy,” Doyoung said, bowing his head. Jungwoo was about to ask for someone to pass him the galbi but then Johnny yelled, “Wait!”

He jumped up from the table. “I made something too.”

“Aish…” Doyoung mumbled under his breath, pressing a hand to his face. Jungwoo glanced over at him.

“Oh no,” Haechan said. “This was gross.”

“Shut up!” Johnny called from the kitchen. He came back carrying a huge punch bowl filled with frothy milky-looking liquid. It looked like a melted vanilla milkshake but smelled spicier so Jungwoo was immediately interested. Johnny found a spot on the table and set it down.

“It’s not gross anymore, I fixed it,” Johnny clarified. “But this is eggnog. It’s a traditional Christmas drink in America, so I made it for you all. It’s my first time.” Johnny looked proud of himself but Haechan pretended to gag.

“I told you I fixed it,” Johnny said.

“I tasted the fixed version,” Haechan said. “It’s gross!”

“Try it for yourselves,” Johnny said, rolling his eyes. “But fair warning… it has rum in it.”

“Thanks, Johnny,” Taeyong said, brightly. “Let’s eat.”

“Wait!” Mark said, holding up a hand. “Since it’s Christmas… can I say grace?”

They all grabbed hands. Jaehyun’s hand was warm and solid in Jungwoo’s and Doyoung’s was softer and slightly cold or possibly wet. When Mark started saying his prayer, Jaehyun gave Jungwoo’s hand a squeeze. Jungwoo’s heart jumped in his throat for a moment. He wasn’t able to get it unstuck until a moment after everyone said “amen” and he mumbled along with them, belatedly.

“Now…” Taeyong said, rubbing his hands together once they were all looking up again. “Now, let’s eat!”

Everyone started talking, reaching over each other and passing plates. Jungwoo filled his plate up with as much food as he could. He loved Taeyong and Doyoung’s cooking. If he could live on the 5th floor and eat their cooking all the time… well, he wouldn’t give up his room with Jaehyun, but if there was a way to make both happen, he’d definitely prefer it.

There were all his favorite foods, which were—Jungwoo thought about it—practically all foods. But he really like Doyoung’s kimchi fried rice so he made sure to get a heap of that before anyone else. You couldn’t be too quick when there were nine guys going for the same food.

Jungwoo was on his second plate by the time some of his members were finished putting together their first.

“Come here for eggnog,” Johnny said, pointing at his bowl with his chopsticks. “I’ll serve you.”

Almost everyone wandered over for a glass, except for Haechan and Jaehyun. Johnny put ice cubes in a squat, round glass, poured the eggnog over them and then sprinkled cinnamon and nutmeg on top. He handed Jungwoo his glass with a grin.

“Enjoy.”

Jungwoo sat back down and took a tentative sip. It didn’t taste like a melted vanilla milkshake and it didn’t taste like egg. Jungwoo wasn’t sure what it tasted like, but it was sweet and creamy and good so he drank some more. He glanced over at Jaehyun. His hyung only had salad on his plate and water in his glass, even though beer and soju were available, along with the eggnog.

“Hyung, you’re not eating?” Jungwoo asked, taking another drink.

Jaehyun shook his head. “I’m filming early tomorrow,” he said. “So I have to take it easy.”

Jungwoo nodded. He admired Jaehyun’s willpower. There was no way he could be sitting at a table full of food and not eat it. This thought made Jungwoo go for more. He finished off the kimichi fried rice and slid the last fried egg onto his plate.

A thought randomly popped into his head as he took a messy bite. _Where’s your abs?_ Lucas’s voice. Jungwoo blinked the thought away, chewing hard.

“So, what’s the verdict on the eggnog?” Johnny asked as dinner was winding down. Jungwoo did feel full now, but he helped himself to another couple of dumplings.

“Ehhhhhhhh!” Haechan said, making a screechy noise like a buzzer.

“You’re out!” Johnny said, in English, pointing at him.

“I like it,” Mark said, his face red.

Johnny rolled his eyes. “Yeah, we can tell.”

Most of the guys liked it but Taeil and Taeyong weren’t fans, so they dumped theirs into other glasses. Jungwoo finished what was left of his. He felt the beginnings of a buzz. He was a bit of a lightweight like Mark, so he didn’t drink anymore. He didn’t want to embarrass himself on Christmas.

More than he already had, anyway.

After dinner, they had a fashion show for the ugly Christmas sweater contest. They were judging not only on the sweater but presentation, too. The runway walk and the music were important.

Jungwoo sat on the floor as the others were sitting on the couch or floor or chairs from the dining room. One by one, they each walked across the room, down an imaginary catwalk to the Christmas music of their choice. It was pretty funny. Doyoung and Taeyong pretended to gallop like reindeers to Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer. Mark strutted to Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer and did a dramatic spin at the end so the rubber band came flying off his sweater and it fell practically to his knees. Haechan did a funny walk to Frosty the Snowman and ended by melting into a puddle on the floor, complete with a squirt gun he produced out of nowhere to attack them with, making everyone shriek. Taeil did a reenactment of his Santa sweater to Santa’s Coming to Town, using Haechan’s arms circled in front of him as a chimney. Somehow, Taeil ended up upside down through Haechan’s arms, balancing himself in a sloppy handstand against Haechan’s knees. They were all roaring with laughter. Jungwoo got a stomachache.

Jungwoo felt tipsy, but not the way they portrayed in the movies. Instead of feeling loose, cool and happy, he felt… paranoid. More conscious of himself. His sweater already sucked. He didn’t know how he was going to make it funny like all the others.

Jaehyun and Johnny went next. Jaehyun walked forward and Johnny walked beside him, but backwards, so the Christmas tree side of the sweater was showing for them both. A regal, old version of Oh Christmas Tree played and at the end, Johnny grabbed Jaehyun and dipped him, while Jaehyun pretended to swoon. Then Johnny leaned over and dropped him, but Jaehyun grabbed Johnny so he toppled over, too. They were both in a heap on the floor, laughing with everyone else.

Except for Jungwoo. He didn’t find it funny.

And he wasn’t funny. When it was his turn, he didn’t know what to do. He did think of a Christmas song he thought was funny. It was Mr. Hanky, the Christmas Poo from South Park. He skipped down their imaginary catwalk. He had no idea what else to do.

“Does this song mean you look like shit?” Haechan asked, after everyone sat in silence for a moment after his turn.

Everyone burst into laughter. Jungwoo rolled his eyes and went back to sit on the floor. Taeil and Haechan both ended up winning in a tie. Jungwoo didn’t get a single vote.

The night continued with Secret Santa. Everyone opened their present and then guessed who it was from. Jungwoo bought a present for Yuta, and he watched eagerly as he opened it. He’d gotten him a personal, portable blender so he could have those smoothies and juices he liked whenever or whenever he wanted.

Jungwoo thought it was a thoughtful gift.

“Uh…” Yuta said, looking bored. “I guess… uh… Taeyong.”

Taeyong shook his head with a small smile.

“I give up.”

Jungwoo raised his hand, proudly. “It was me.”

Yuta slid his eyes over to him and nodded. “Thanks,” he said.

Jungwoo waited for a little more but then they moved on to the next person.

Jungwoo’s present was a t-shirt that said “insert food here” with an outline in the shape of a stomach and an arrow that pointed down. Jungwoo showed it to everyone and they laughed. Personally, he thought the t-shirt was sort of tacky. But he could see they were trying to be funny.

“Uh…” Jungwoo said. He took inventory of who had already been revealed. “Haechan,” he guessed. Haechan grinned and gave him finger guns.

Jungwoo folded his new t-shirt up, very carefully as the others took their turns. He wondered if the alcohol was making him feel disappointed.

After the games, everyone settled down to hang out. There was more talking and drinking. But surprisingly, there were more presents. Even though Doyoung and Taeyong weren’t Secret Santa buddies, they got each other a present. Jungwoo noticed some other random exchanges going on. Mark pulled out his guitar and Johnny got Jaehyun the keyboard. They started a Christmas song sing-along and it felt… cozy.

But it wasn’t the same.

Jungwoo didn’t feel left out, per se, but he also felt like he was a little bit on the outside looking in. Everyone included him but he didn’t feel like their first choice. Jungwoo didn’t know how to explain it. He felt like this sometimes, but it usually wasn’t this bad.

Maybe it was the eggnog.

There was something else, too. It was Christmas. He’d always been able to see him parents and his sister. He was surrounded by people who were his actual family and loved whatever he got for them. He really wanted a hug. He wanted his mom. He missed his family. He missed his regular life. He wanted this whole pandemic to go away.

Jungwoo put his face against his knees and took a deep breath.

“Jungwoo,” Jaehyun called. Jungwoo lifted his head. Jaehyun waved him over. “Sing this with me?”

Jaehyun was sitting on a chair in front of the keyboard so Jungwoo pulled up a chair and sat beside him. Jaehyun started playing O Holy Night and Jungwoo sang with him. It felt lovely, the words coming out of his mouth, harmonizing with Jaehyun. Mark stopped playing and everyone just listened to them. When they were done, the whole room burst into applause. Jungwoo felt himself blushing.

“Good job,” Jaehyun said, rubbing Jungwoo’s shoulder and giving him a warm smile. Jungwoo started blushing more.

“Encore!” Taeil yelled.

“Hey, Jaehyun,” Johnny said, appearing beside them. “Come with me for a second?” He offered Jaehyun his hand. “I wanna show you something in my room.”

“Okay, Johnny,” Jaehyun said, letting Johnny pull him to his feet. Jungwoo watched them disappear to the back of the apartment.

Mark started his guitar again, this time starting up a round of Jingle Bell Rock. There was more singing and dancing and a lot more drinking, so everyone was getting louder and sillier, everyone having fun. Jungwoo tried his best to enjoy himself and he did at times. But most of the time, he felt like he was only pretending.

Doyoung packed up all the leftovers for the 10th floor.

“Our present to you,” Doyoung said, once he packed the bag.

“Hey, hey, hey, what’s going on here?” Johnny said, hurrying over with Jaehyun in tow. That’s when Jungwoo realized he hadn’t seen them in over an hour. “You can’t give them all the food.”

“Yeah!” Haechan said.

“I am the boss of the food,” Doyoung said, pointing at Johnny and Haechan in turn. “You two don’t get a say.”

“You owe me breakfast,” Johnny said.

Taeyong clapped his hands together and Jungwoo felt relieved.

“Schedules tomorrow,” he said. “Goodnight everyone. Merry Christmas.”

They left, carrying their presents, carrying food, everyone laughing and talking. It was after midnight and everyone went immediately to their bedrooms to do their own thing.

“That was fun,” Jaehyun said, pulling off his Christmas sweater as soon as they closed the door. Jungwoo sat on his bed and looked at him. Jaehyun really had a great body.

“Yeah,” he said, belatedly.

“Oh…” Jaehyun came over to him and started plucking post-it notes off his back. Jungwoo had practically forgotten about those. Many had already fallen off. He looked down at his chest. All he could see was the word ugly, ugly, ugly, posted all over him in both Korean and English.

“Johnny hyung doesn’t always have the best ideas,” Jaehyun said, helping Jungwoo take the rest of the post-it notes off. He crumbled them up and threw them in the trash.

Jungwoo took his sweater off and threw it in the trash as well. He didn’t need to wear it again.

“It was a nice Christmas,” Jaehyun said, after they had both gotten into bed. Jungwoo was in charge of turning off the lights. Now they laid in darkness. “But I bet you missed your family. I missed mine, too.”

Jungwoo nodded. Surprisingly, tears threatened his eyes. But he didn’t want Jaehyun to know. So he pretended he had fallen asleep.

They were in silence for so long that Jungwoo was sure Jaehyun was sleeping and he was the only one lying awake in the darkness. But then, Jaehyun mumbled sleepily, “Goodnight, Jungwoo.”

Jungwoo couldn’t sleep.

At first, he thought about his family and cried silently. After that he thought about the upcoming Beyond Live concert and how he was sure to screw up and cried some more. After that he tried not to think about anything at all for a long time, but it didn’t work.

Then he thought about the food.

They had eaten a lot but there were quite a few leftovers. No kimchi fried rice unfortunately, but dumplings and tteokbokki, and jajangmyeon and chicken wings and green tea cake. The thought of it was enough for Jungwoo’s mouth to water and his stomach to rumble in anticipation.

He really wanted to stop crying.

Jungwoo got up carefully and snuck into the kitchen. He didn’t turn on the lights. The glow of the fridge was all he needed. Doyoung had packed everything into these neat Tupperware containers that he put his initials on. The first one he opened were the black bean noodles. Jungwoo took a deep breath, letting the delicious aroma take over his senses. He thought about getting chopsticks, but that might be too noisy, so in the end, he just used his fingers.

It tasted even better this way.

Jungwoo wasn’t quite sure how it happened. One moment he was enjoying a container of black bean noodles. The next it was gone. It had been quite a bit of noodles, more than a midnight snack, but as he pressed the top down with his messy fingers, he didn’t feel satisfied. If he went back to bed, he knew he’d start crying again. He just didn’t want to feel anymore.

This felt like the best way to do that.

After all, eating was the only thing he was truly good at.

Jungwoo opened the next container. It was the tteokbokki, sticky and waiting for him. Using his fingers made everything taste better. Or maybe he wasn’t tasting at all. The most important thing was that it all went into his mouth. He got lost in the chewing. He sucked on his fingers when he was done.

He looked for more.

The dumplings. Even though they were cold from the fridge, they still had a crunch. The filling was hearty and spicy. Jungwoo couldn’t even remember what was inside. That didn’t matter. It slid down to his stomach all the same. He didn’t need time to breathe. He just focused on eating, cramming one dumpling in his mouth after another, no breaks. And then he ate the chicken wings, each one of them, just the same.

The cake was probably the worst thing to eat without utensils. But it didn’t matter. He grabbed a hunk, stuffed it in his mouth and afterward, he sucked on his fingers. Green tea cake wasn’t his favorite but the only thing that mattered was that it was food. What mattered was the way the chewing and the swallowing took everything else away. Nothing mattered right now. Nothing else but the next bite. And the next one. And the next one.

Before he knew it, everything was gone.

Jungwoo felt jolted back into his senses, staring at the empty bag. The empty containers were strewn all over the place like a wild animal had broken in. There were smears of sauce and frosting on the countertop. Bones on the floor from the chicken wings. Noodles dropped. Chunks of dumplings from when he took a big bite and it fell out of his mouth. Jungwoo took a step away. It felt like he was seeing this scene for the first time.

Did he really do that?

He almost felt like he blacked out or something. Part of him couldn’t remember, but part of him definitely did, definitely knew that he had just eaten all the leftovers they were supposed to share. All of them, all alone, in the middle of the night, in the dark.

What had he done?

Jungwoo felt his heart racing as he crammed the containers back in the bag. He didn’t know what he was going to do. He couldn’t tell anyone about this. He went over to the trashcan but there was no way he could hide it in there. He thought about taking it back to his room, but… Jaehyun. What could he do? Jungwoo’s hands started shaking. Nobody could know about this. He was already such a fuck up. Jungwoo screwed his eyes shut tight.

What was he going to do?

Jungwoo started moving before his mind could catch up. He cleaned up, wiping down the counter silently, cleaning up the floor, throwing the bones bag into the bag. Then he grabbed the Tupperware bag and crossed the living room, quietly opening the door to the balcony. It was freezing outside and his teeth immediately started chattering, especially since he was only dressed in in a t-shirt and shorts. Jungwoo peeked over the balcony at Seoul skyline peeping back at him. The bright lights were even colder and completely unforgiving.

You are the fucking worst, the city told him. Jungwoo shivered hard.

He dropped the bag over the edge of the balcony and slipped back inside before he saw it hit the ground.

Inside, Jungwoo doubled over, shaking, but this was from more than the cold. His stomach felt hard and wedged up to his throat. He could feel it sticking out. He was so full. He shouldn’t have eaten all of that. Oh God, what did he do?

Then he remembered the perfect solution.

Jungwoo closed the bathroom door behind him and listened for a moment. He couldn’t hear anything but the intense beating of his own racing heart. Everyone was asleep.

Jungwoo kneeled in front of the toilet, lifted the seat and took a deep breath.

He thought about Lucas’s words. He thought about the word UGLY scrawled all over him. He thought about all the food he’d just consumed, that looked so good when Doyoung placed it on the table for them but it was so ugly now.

Ugly, just like him.

Jungwoo shut his eyes and slipped his finger down his throat.

He gagged, hard. He kept going. He jerked forward, his body heaving. His chest slammed against the lip of the toilet. He began to vomit, thick sludge pouring out of him like an awful tube of toothpaste. It was disgusting. It hurt.

He needed to get this out of him.

Jungwoo coughed hard, forcing everything out of his body. It was slow and there was so much in there, it kept coming up, some of it still whole. Tears streamed down his face. His heart was still slamming in his chest. But at least he was doing something productive for once. Something right. If he could get rid of this, everything would be okay. He’d be able to think.

Jungwoo gripped the side of the toilet with one hand as he forced himself to vomit again.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door and Jungwoo jumped. The door opened before he could say anything and Jaehyun stepped inside.

“Jungwoo?” Jaehyun asked. He flipped on the lights and Jungwoo flinched. Suddenly, he could see what a mess he’d made. It was all over the seat. Jungwoo closed his eyes.

“Are you okay?” Jaehyun knelt behind him and rubbed his back. “What happened? Are you sick?”

The blissful calm that had just begun to wash over him was quickly evaporating. How could he let Jaehyun see him like this? Jungwoo couldn’t think of what to say. He knelt there, frozen. What would Jaehyun say if he knew what Jungwoo had done? He would think he was totally disgusting. He wouldn’t want to room with him or talk to him ever again.

“Did you drink too much?” Jaehyun said. “It was the eggnog, right? I told Johnny he put too much rum in it.”

Jungwoo sniffed and then he nodded because he couldn’t think of what else to do.

“I’m sorry. It sneaks up on you.” Jaehyun was rubbing little circles on his back and he sound like he really felt sorry. “It’s not your fault. Are you okay? Are you done?”

Jungwoo felt like such a fraud. He also felt stuck. He knew he wasn’t finished emptying his stomach. He wanted Jaehyun to leave. He wanted to finish what he started. But at the same time, he wanted Jaehyun there so bad.

He nodded that he was finished, giving in to the idea that he wasn’t going to get this done right. Jaehyun wrapped an arm around him. But then his body ended up having other ideas, and he surprised himself by puking quite a lot, no fingers involved.

“I’m sorry, hyung,” Jungwoo choked out when he could finally speak. Jaehyun got up and when he came back, he was wiping Jungwoo’s face and mouth with a warm washcloth. Jungwoo had never been so grateful.

Even though he didn’t deserve it at all.

Jaehyun wiped the seat down with toilet paper, dropped it in the dirty water, flushed the toilet and helped Jungwoo to his feet. “Rinse your mouth out,” he said, softly, helping Jungwoo to the sink. Jungwoo bent over, gulping water and spitting it out. His hands were still shaking.

“Lay down…” Jaehyun said. “I’m going to get you some water and aspirin. And I’ll get you the trashcan, so if you need to get sick again, you don’t have to get up. It’s okay.”

“Did I wake you up?” Jungwoo asked, his heart pounding with a new worry. He had done everything to be so careful.

Jaehyun shook his head. “No… my alarm. It’s 3am. My schedules start at 4.”

Jungwoo swallowed, guiltily. Jaehyun needed to film and rehearse all day while the rest of them didn’t start until noon. Instead of getting ready, he was dealing with Jungwoo’s mess.

Jungwoo didn’t deserve him.

“Don’t worry about me,” Jungwoo said. “I’ll be okay. Don’t… get me anything. You need to get ready.”

“Shhh…” Jaehyun said, leading Jungwoo back to their room. Jungwoo had no choice but to lay down as Jaehyun got him the water, pills and the bucket. He made sure Jungwoo was comfortable and sat on the edge of the bed. Jungwoo stared up at him, his heart filled with a depth of gratitude that Jaehyun would never know.

“I’m sorry,” Jungwoo whispered.

“Go to sleep,” Jaehyun said. Staring into his eyes in the darkness, Jungwoo thought for a moment that he could do it. What if he told Jaehyun what actually happened, would he really hate him?

What if he told Jaehyun how he truly felt?

“Hyung—” Jungwoo croaked out.

Jaehyun’s phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his hoodie pocket and glanced at it, before putting it to his ear. “Yes, John.” He paused for a moment. “I told you…” Jaehyun glanced down at Jungwoo and then switched to speaking to Johnny in English. Jungwoo knew that Jaehyun didn’t want him to understand what they were talking about, so he turned away.

Jaehyun ran a hand over his hair and whispered, in Korean, “Get some sleep.” Jungwoo stared at the wall, listening to Jaehyun talking quietly and walking out the room.

Jungwoo’s stomach felt more or less empty. The bad thoughts tried to multiply in his brain but he really was so tired after all that exertion. He felt himself slipping into darkness, falling asleep.

His second to last thought before he passed out was that he could never tell anyone.

His last thought was, when could he do it again?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jungwoo struggles during dress rehearsal for the Beyond Live concert.
> 
> TW:  
> Smoking  
> Laxative abuse (graphic)

Jungwoo woke up with a gasp when someone pounded on his door.

“We have to leave in 30 minutes,” Taeil called. “You awake?”

Jungwoo groaned. He felt like he had a hangover, even though he didn’t. His throat hurt and his finger, strangely, enough. He sat up and examined his right hand. He had a cut on one of his knuckles. From what? His teeth?

“I’m awake,” he called out, his voice sounding strangled and croaky. Great, that wasn’t going to work.

He figured he had time to take a five minute shower. It wasn’t until he was halfway to the bathroom that he remembered the state he’d left it in.

Everything came flooding back to him.

Jungwoo pushed the door open, heart pounding. Everything looked and smelled normal. Jungwoo examined the toilet carefully and he saw wet towels drying from other showers. Had anyone noticed? Did Jaehyun clean this up for him?

“Dude!” Mark said, from behind him. “Jungwoo. We’ve been looking for you. Yo, do you remember what happened to the food?”

Jungwoo whirled around. “What?” he yelped. Yuta stood beside Mark.

“The food from last night,” Yuta said.

Jungwoo blinked. His heart was pounding. He could barely form words. “Huh?” he sputtered out.

“I thought he brought it,” Yuta said, turning to Mark.

“It wasn’t Jungwoo, I already told you that,” Mark said.

“Then who was it?”

“I don’t know.”

“It was you.”

“It wasn’t _me_ ,” Mark protested. “I had my guitar. I didn’t bring it.” He turned back to Jungwoo. “We can’t find it. Like it’s totally gone.”

“Oh—” Jungwoo said.

“Oh?” Yuta glanced over at Mark. “I thought you’d be freaking out more than any of us.”

“The… food?” Jungwoo tried. God, how was he going to get out of this?

“It’s like we got robbed but they only took Doyoung’s Tupperware.”

“Duuuuude,” Mark drawled. “He’s gonna be so pissed. We have to find it.”

“You’re sure you don’t know anything about it,” Yuta said, giving Jungwoo a hard look.

“How would he know?” Mark said. “He just woke up. I know for a fact that Jungwoo didn’t take the food back last night. Maybe we left it.”

“We didn’t leave it,” Yuta said. “You took it.”

“I did _not_ take it. I swear. I would have remembered. I think.”

They both wandered down the hallway, arguing some more over the missing food.

Jungwoo shut the bathroom door behind him and took a sharp breath.

What was he doing?

He was a horrible person.

Jungwoo stood in the front of the mirror and looked at his face. He looked pale with dark circles under his eyes. Were they going to be filming today? He looked at his hand further. He really didn’t know how he hurt his knuckle. He didn’t remember… teeth.

Jungwoo gripped the sink and stared at himself harder. Get it together, Kim, he told himself.

He undressed for a quick shower. Staring at his pale, soft body in the mirror, Jungwoo flexed his biceps in the mirror. But there was nothing much to flex. He looked down at his doughy belly and poked it. He wasn’t sure if the throwing up was helping anything. How long did it take before the calories started sticking to you? Jaehyun had the perfect body and he didn’t eat.

If only Jungwoo could be more like him.

But he was stuck being like himself. And right now, Kim Jungwoo was pathetic.

He got showered, dressed and ready with little time to spare. Everyone was putting their shoes on at the front door. Jungwoo slipped his on, grabbed his fanny pack, and followed his members out the door.

“Johnny!” Mark called as soon as they saw Johnny downstairs in the lobby. “Did you… we took the food last night, right? I know you were mad about that.”

Johnny looked over at them and shook his head. “I wasn’t mad. And yeah, you did… what kind of question is that?”

“Nothing!” Mark squeaked. Jungwoo was just waiting for the vans with the group when Johnny came over to him.

“Hey Jungwoo…” Johnny said, looking over at him. “I didn’t… how much did you drink last night? It wasn’t that much, right? I didn’t see you.”

Jungwoo looked at Johnny and didn’t know what to say. Johnny was watching him so Jungwoo knew he had to say something.

“I don’t… know…” He sputtered out.

Johnny shook his head. “Jaehyun said you got sick?” He lowered his voice, stepping in closer. “Jaehyun is sort of pissed at me.”

Jungwoo’s heart lifted for half-a-second. Then he remembered that everything was a lie.

“But no one else got sick,” Johnny continued. “I asked. You didn’t seem _that_ drunk.”

“It… probably just didn’t agree with me,” Jungwoo managed to say. “I’ll tell him. I’m sorry, Johnny.”

Johnny shrugged. “Not your fault. Just glad you’re okay now. I’ll make you something different next time.”

Jungwoo hung his head as the vans pulled up. How many lies could one person tell in the space of 30 minutes? Jungwoo was about to set a world record.

Today, they drove to the Beyond Live studio instead of their usual practice rooms at SM. They were doing a full dress rehearsal so everything was really busy.

Jungwoo waited around until it was his turn to meet with the cordinoonas. They fussed with his stage outfits, his hair and his makeup.

“Why is your face so puffy?” One of them asked him. “Did you drink too much last night?”

His face was puffy? Jungwoo tried to look in the mirror, but there were too many people moving around him. He couldn’t see anything.

“Your lips are chapped and red.” The cordinoona tsked. He had to wear a cold pack for 20 minutes to help his puffy face and a lip mask. Then they went about with make up. He tried on his outfits after that.

“Why isn’t this fitting right?” the stylist asked, when tried to zip up his pants. They didn’t quite zip up all the way. They were too tight. “You only wore these last week. How much weight can you gain in a week? Why are you so bloated? Watch what you eat!”

Jungwoo bit down on his newly moisturized lip. The stylist unzipped him and fastened him up with a safety pin. They were able to hide it with Jungwoo’s shirt.

“Christmas is over,” the stylist said, looking at him in the eyes. Jungwoo wanted to melt into the floor. “No more treats until after the concert. If you watch what you eat tonight and have a good bowel movement, we’ll be able to zip these tomorrow.”

Jungwoo slunk away, feeling humiliated and cold at the same time. What did he expect? If he ate a meal for 9 people in the span of an hour, of course he was going to gain weight. No matter how much he threw up. And he didn’t even get to finish the job last night because Jaehyun found him. He knew he had more inside of him. If only he were able to get it all out.

But no. That didn’t matter. Jungwoo told himself he wasn’t going to do that again. All he had to do was not eat between now and the concert tomorrow. That wasn’t bad, right? He remembered Jaehyun’s words. He said it wasn’t a big deal for him to not eat or drink for like half a day.

Jungwoo checked his watch. Okay, it was a little over 24 hours. He could do it. And when he came for his fitting tomorrow, the pants were going to zip up right.

Jungwoo was tired of screwing up.

He sat at a table in the green room with the others as they waited and heaved out a huge sigh.

Jungwoo glanced over as Yuta pulled out the chair beside him and sat down.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Jungwoo said, with another sigh. It slipped past his lips. He couldn’t help it.

Yuta stared at him for a moment. As usual, Yuta looked amazing. 100 times more better than Jungwoo could ever hope to achieve.

“Um,” Yuta said. “I wanted to say I’m sorry… for this morning. When I accused you of taking the food. I know it wasn’t you. Mark told me you didn’t take the bag home and… you wouldn’t do that.”

Jungwoo blinked, taken completely by surprise. He didn’t know what to say. His heart started racing. Yuta gave him a small smile.

“And…” He held up his cup and after a moment, Jungwoo realized it was the cup from the personal blender he’d given Yuta for Christmas.

“Celery juice,” Yuta explained. “I really like this. Thank you. It’s… really great. I… last night, I wasn’t in the best mood. I miss my family. So sorry… thinking about it, I realized I came off a little cold and rude. I love the present.”

Jungwoo blinked again. Now he really was going to cry. Instead, he reached for Yuta and pulled him into a hug. He felt Yuta put the cup down before hugging him back, tightly.

Jungwoo didn’t deserve this. But he needed it so bad.

When they pulled apart, Yuta gave him a smile.

“You wanna try?” He asked, offering Jungwoo his cup. Jungwoo leaned away with a laugh.

“Noooooo!”

Jungwoo looked around after Yuta had wandered off. They had plenty of snacks in the green room and about a half hour before their dress rehearsal began. It would be so tempting to go grab a granola bar and a Gatorade but… Jungwoo looked down at his pants and the safety pin. He wasn’t going to give in. Last night had been bad. Really bad. He had to prove to himself that he had willpower.

Instead, he got up and walked over to Lucas, who was chilling on the floor with a few WayV members.

“Hi…” Jungwoo said, waving at all of them. Lucas craned his head back and grinned his bright, puppy grin when he spotted Jungwoo.

“Hey, buddy!” he said, cheerfully.

“You wanna…?” Jungwoo brought two fingers to his lips. Lucas’s smile brightened even more and he jumped to his feet.

“I thought you’d never ask!” he said, grabbing Jungwoo’s arm. This time, they wore padding so they weren’t freezing their asses off and also to protect their stage outfits from smoke smell.

“Thought you quit,” Lucas said, but he was grinning as he handed Jungwoo a cigarette from his pack.

“That was five days ago…” Jungwoo mumbled.

Lucas snickered, lighting them both up. “I knew you’d come around,” he said, taking a drag and then blowing the smoke up to the sky.

Jungwoo tried not to inhale too deeply. He ended up coughing anyway. Lucas laughed.

“You’re smoking like a virgin!” he joked.

Jungwoo smiled and rolled his eyes. But he really couldn’t smoke the damn cigarette without coughing his lungs out.

Could he do anything right?

Lucas patted his back. “Why you smoking again?”

I’m hungry, Jungwoo thought. But he just gave a shrug.

“Oh, I heard you had too much eggnog last night.”

Jungwoo straightened up from his latest coughing fit, holding the cigarette far from him. “What?”

“At the Christmas party.” Lucas’s warm brown eyes were full of mirth. “Johnny’s eggnog. Now I want to try it because it sounds like you must have had a good time.”

Jungwoo closed his eyes for a moment. This was going around? Seriously? Everyone must have heard. It had to be Johnny because he knew that Jaehyun would never tell.

“I heard that Jaehyun found you puking, so he made Johnny call him and bitched him out at 3 in the morning!” Lucas declared. “Haechan heard everything. Now Johnny’s pissed. Haechan said eggnog was gross. I guess you liked it.”

Jungwoo swallowed hard. Jaehyun was pissed at Johnny? Johnny was pissed Jaehyun? Or him? But this morning, Johnny didn’t seem mad. What had he done?

“Are you okay? You got a hangover?” Lucas continued. “That’s always a bitch to work through. Smoking will help, if you can keep it in your lungs!”

Jungwoo pitched the cigarette in the snow. This obviously wasn’t working. He tried to take a deep breath and ended up coughing again.

“You okay?” Lucas tipped his head. This time, Jungwoo heard a genuine note of concern. He was always worrying everyone. Jungwoo nodded.

“Yeah,” he finally gasped out. “I wasn’t drunk.”

“Huh?” Lucas said.

Jungwoo’s heart seized for a moment. He imagined telling Lucas everything. The truth. Lucas wasn’t a judgmental guy. He didn’t think Lucas would hate him. Lucas was one of the best listeners that Jungwoo knew. He needed someone to listen. He was scared about what was happening to him.

But when Jungwoo opened his mouth, the words wouldn’t come out. They were stuck deep in his stomach, like all that food he couldn’t get rid of. His heart just started beating faster and faster and then he begun to feel dizzy, like he couldn’t breathe.

No, he wasn’t going to tell Lucas. He would get over this. By sheer force of will. He was strong enough, all he had to do was concentrate. No eating today. No more puking.

Jungwoo gasped out a breath.

“Why aren’t you breathing?” Lucas asked. “Maybe you shouldn’t smoke.”

“Eggnog just didn’t agree with me,” Jungwoo said, finally looking at Lucas again. Lucas gave him a strange smile, like he was trying to figure him out. Jungwoo couldn’t let that happen. Not right now. So he grabbed Lucas’s cigarette and plucked it out of his hand.

“Hey!” Lucas yelped.

Jungwoo threw it in the snow, along with his own. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go back inside.”

*

Before the dress rehearsal, they all sat on stage and listened to their director explain about all the backgrounds and the cameras and special effects. They were practicing with everything together today. Jungwoo tried to concentrate, but his stomach was growling. They ended up running late and everyone had lunch but Jungwoo didn’t. That was a good thing.

But it also meant he was hungry.

“Okay,” the director said. “Any questions?”

Jungwoo watched his small eyes roam around the room. Nobody had any questions, but—

Jungwoo raised his hand in the air.

“Yeah?” the director said.

“What… camera is mine, again?” Jungwoo asked sheepishly. A few people laughed.

“Can someone explain?” the director said, with a dismissive shrug. Mark slid over to Jungwoo.

“Okay,” he said in a low voice as the director moved on to another topic. “Like, when we’re performing one of the cameras has a red light. So you watch that one. But if there isn’t a red light, then you look for your multicam camera. Your color is purple. And then when there’s red and purple, you look at the main camera when it’s in front of you and you can play to the purple camera, the rest of the time. Got it?”

Jungwoo didn’t “got it” and now he was missing everything else that was being said. He nodded helplessly and Mark gave him a thumbs up.

He took a deep breath. He tried to shake the feeling that he was about to mess everything up. He didn’t think he heard anything else the director said. His mind was lost in a whirlwind of the images of his imminent failure.

He didn’t want to do this.

“Hey,” Jaehyun said to him, as they prepared for the opening number. Jungwoo hadn’t see him all day. He had slipped in after filming at some point. Jaehyun wrapped his arm around Jungwoo’s shoulders. “How are you feeling?”

Jungwoo wanted to turn to Jaehyun and wrap his arms around him. He wanted to confess that he was feeling confused, anxious and like he was slipping out of control. He didn’t know what was dragging him down like this but he didn’t like it. He wanted to confess that he was scared. He needed to figure out what was going on.

But when he glanced at Jaehyun, he heard someone shout, “Jae!”

He looked up and saw Johnny striding over to them. Jaehyun dropped his arm, turning towards Johnny.

“I was looking for you,” Jaehyun said.

“I was looking for you, too,” Johnny said. Then he looked at Jungwoo. “Jungwoo, you good?”

Jungwoo knew that Jaehyun had other things to worry about. He forced himself to nod. He kept nodding, even after Jaehyun and Johnny had left and were out of sight.

“Places, everyone!” the director said. “Let’s do this!”

Jungwoo took a deep breath. He could do this. He would get through this. He had willpower. He’d figure out the cameras. It was just a matter of leaving it all on the stage.

Jungwoo closed his eyes.

“You are ready,” Taeyong said from behind him, before he poked Jungwoo’s back. Jungwoo opened his eyes and did his best his smile.

There was no turning back now.

*

Jungwoo didn’t think it was his best performance. It wasn’t the worst, but it wasn’t the best. After the first couple of songs, he got the hang of the cameras. He tried to have fun. That was the hardest part. Because in reality, he wasn’t having fun at all.

He was glad when it was over.

“Tomorrow,” the director said, addressing all of them. “You need to be better. Tomorrow is the real deal. One take. Everything is live. If you’re lacking in anything, I suggest you work on it all night. There’s no excuse for mistakes tomorrow.”

Jungwoo bent over to take a breath and the safety pin popped off his pants.

“Uh…” Haechan said, pointing. “Hyung, your fly is open.”

Jungwoo grabbed his fly and hurried off to the bathroom to the change.

After the dress rehearsal, once they were back in their regular clothes, they all sat down to have dinner and listen to final instructions before their concert the next afternoon. The green room was noisy with everyone talking and everyone eat. Jungwoo grabbed a bottle of water and went to sit by himself. That was the only way he could get through this. But then, Jaehyun and Johnny sat with him. Mark and Haechan joined them. Yuta came, then Taeil. It was a whole table full of his bandmates.

So much for Jungwoo’s plan.

“Hey, why aren’t you eating?” Haechan asked, with his mouth full. Everyone looked over at Jungwoo. He took a long drink of his water.

“That’s a first,” Yuta said.

“Are you still feeling sick?” Jaehyun asked, his eyebrows knitting together in concern.

Jungwoo _hated_ this.

“I’m going to regret making that eggnog for the rest of my life,” Johnny said.

“As you should, hyung.” Haechan nodded.

“I liked it, though,” Mark said. “I’m fine.”

Jungwoo got up and went to get some food.

He told himself he would only get enough to shut everyone up. And it worked… for a little while. He was eating a few noodles and talking with everyone. He almost felt normal.

But then Jaehyun gave him a pork bun and Mark gave him the rest of his kimichi fried rice and Johnny got two desserts, so he gave one to Jungwoo. Plus the chicken from Yuta and then Kun stopped by to share brownies he’d made for whole team. Jaehyun couldn’t have any so Jungwoo ended up taking two.

He couldn’t stop.

Why did this keep happening to him?

But he had to admit that when he was eating, he didn’t feel anything else.

Their managers rounded them up at the end of the night, so they could get into their respective vans and head home. Jungwoo rubbed his stomach as the others shuffled past him. He remembered the zipper that wouldn’t tug close correctly. He heard the pop of the safety pin as it tried to escape.

Jungwoo needed to fix this.

“Hyung,” he said, hurrying over to one of their managers. “Uh… I… can I find my own ride home tonight?”

“Absolutely not,” the manager said.

His teammates on the 10th floor stopped walking and wandered over curiously. Jungwoo guessed they heard the conversation. He took a deep breath and tried again.

“I just… need to do something,” Jungwoo said. “It’s important. In private.”

“Ooooo!” Mark said. “He needs privacy.”

“Is it… a date?” Taeil asked.

“A date!” Mark repeated. Yuta looked intrigued. Thank God Jaehyun wasn’t there. He was riding back with Johnny in the fifth floor van.

“No!” Jungwoo said, feeling flustered. “Not a date. I just need… time alone. Please?”

“We’ll give you space at the dorm,” Yuta said, seriously.

Jungwoo bit his trembling lip. He felt like he was about to cry. He didn’t know how to get his point across. The other vans were driving away. His manager was starting to look concerned. Jungwoo felt Mark, Yuta and Taeil’s eyes on him. He started to shake.

“What’s going on?” Taeyong asked, walking up to them.

“Jungwoo has a date and he doesn’t want to go home with us. Needs privacy,” Mark said, with a teasing grin on his face. The others were laughing.

“No!” Jungwoo said and there was more desperation in his voice than he expected.

Everyone shut up.

Taeyong stepped over to him. When Jungwoo dared to look at him, he saw Taeyong taking him in. He couldn’t look at him for long. Taeyong put his hand on the side of Jungwoo’s shoulder.

“I trust Jungwoo,” Taeyong said. “If he needs to do something… it’s fine. He can find his way home. Just… don’t come home too late.” Taeyong nodded at the manager first and then he looked at Jungwoo.

“Okay?” Taeyong gave his shoulder a squeeze.

Jungwoo nodded. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Everyone headed outside. Jungwoo watched them get in the vans. They drove away.

He was alone.

Jungwoo zipped up his coat and headed outside.

He didn’t have a plan but he found himself at the nearest convenience store. Jungwoo wandered inside. He remembered that the stylist told him that if he didn’t eat anything and had a good bowel movement, he could fit in the pants. Well, he’d already blown the first part but at least he could do something about the second part.

He headed down the pharmacy aisle and grabbed a box of laxatives. That should help. After he bought them, he tucked them in his coat pocket and headed out.

Jungwoo really didn’t know where to go. He could grab a taxi and head back to the dorm to take his laxative. But something inside of him told him not to go back there.

He ducked into a movie theater. They weren’t really busy nowadays, due to the pandemic, so nobody noticed him when he headed to the bathroom.

Jungwoo opened his coat and looked at this red face in the mirror. It was still puffy, he could really see it now, under the harsh light of the movie theater bathroom. He poked at his puffy face and then his puffy stomach. Stupid pants wouldn’t zip. Jungwoo checked his watch. It had been an hour since dinner. Too late to throw up, everything was getting digested now.

Then he got another idea.

He pulled the laxatives out of his pocket and examined them. They said to take one and it would work in about 12 hours. How was that supposed to help him? He bet if he took 4 then it might work… sooner. And he could purge everything in his stomach. That would definitely help for tomorrow, right?

He popped four of the blue tabs out of the package and placed them in his mouth. They tasted sweet, like candy he’d want to suck. Why was he so into food? Jungwoo felt disgusted with himself as he bent over to drink water from the sink to swallow them down.

He looked at the pack again. There were 12 of them. If one took 12 hours to work, then 12 should take one hour to work, right? That would give him enough time to get rid of everything in his stomach and make it back to the dorm before it was too late.

He swallowed down the rest.

Jungwoo stared in the mirror, wondering what would happen. A small voice in the back of his head said, _that was a bad idea._

About 20 minutes later, he felt the cramps start.

Five minutes later, he was on the floor.

Jungwoo gasped, clasping his stomach with one hand. He had no idea what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this. It felt like there was a wild animal inside of him, trying to rip him apart from the inside out. The cramps were so strong, he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t even cry. All he could do was concentrate on staying alive.

And getting to the toilet.

He crawled to a stall, lifted himself and locked the door, breathing hard. Sweat was pouring down his face. He barely had time to drop his pants and underwear and sit on the toilet before he went everywhere. He had wanted to get everything out? Well, it was coming out and it was all Jungwoo could do not to scream. He’d never experienced anything like this before. The cramps were so strong. He clutched the walls, bit his lower lip hard and whimpered when he wanted to be sobbing and begging for forgiveness. His body convulsed, shooting everything straight down, out of him. It felt like his organs were going to come out of him. He was actually scared. He was losing so much, so fast and it was pure liquid. It felt so warm. Maybe it was blood.

The cramps got stronger. His stomach clenched, bucked and rolled. He didn’t realize he was going to throw up until he was actually doing it, all over his legs. How could there be anything left? But there was and now it was coming out of both ends at once.

Jungwoo was a disgusting mess. He didn’t even know if the toilet would flush when he was done. Vomit was all over him and all over the floor. Everything in Seoul was supposed to shut down soon. Jungwoo knew it was close. He didn’t know if he would be done. He didn’t even know if he would be alive. He didn’t know how to get out of this. What had he done? He just wanted it to stop.

His body kept going and even though he couldn’t find the tears, Jungwoo bit his hand the best he could to muffle his own, tired sobs. He was losing feeling from his legs and he was so dizzy. He told himself he couldn’t faint. No one could find him in here. Not like this. It would be worse than the eggnog story.

It might be the end of his whole career.

Jungwoo’s breathing was erratic as his body continue to heave and push everything out of him. He felt totally out of control. He bit his hand harder, hoping the sharpness of the pain would keep him awake. But there was pain everywhere. Lightheaded, he thought about his phone in his fanny pack. But even if he could concentrate long enough to use it, he didn’t know who he would call.

He did this to himself. He deserved to suffer.

Finally, his body allowed fluid to travel to his tear ducts and he really began to cry.

He cried and moaned and vomited and shitted for he didn’t know how long. Until his body finally became still. Until he felt like every drop of liquid had been flooded out from inside of him. Every drop of energy was gone from him.

Maybe his very soul.

The lights flickered and an electric announcement came on. Everyone had to exit the theater by 10pm, after the final showing. He was shaking so hard that he could hardly wipe himself. After a few attempts, he gave up.

It didn’t matter anyway. His pants were totally soaked in vomit. He was vile, anyway you put it. Jungwoo stood up very slowly, leaning against the stall, and got his underwear and pants back on the best he could. He could smell it all everywhere, all over him.

He couldn’t go back to the dorm like this.

He didn’t know what he was going to do.

Jungwoo moved very slowly, finally finding the strength to leave the stall. It took him about ten minutes to lift his hands to the sink and wash them, over and over. He attempted to wipe off his pants with the thin paper towels. They broke and shredded against the God awful mess.

That’s how he had to leave. He didn’t bother putting on his coat. He wanted something to be untouched by his failure.

Jungwoo dragged his feet as he headed down the empty street. He’d never seen the streets of Seoul so quiet. For the first time in his life, he was thankful for the coronavirus pandemic. No one was around to witness this. The ultimate humiliation.

Jungwoo found himself at an empty park. The swing set was roped off. Forget being thankful for the pandemic. The world was so goddamn fucked up.

Just like Jungwoo.

He shuffled over to a snowbank and dropped himself on top of it. The cold immediately seeped into his hair and his already damp pants. He laid there and surprisingly, it helped him stop shaking.

Jungwoo thought he had gotten over this. That he was better than this. He worked for so long over the course of 8 months to get better. And he was better. He had been. Everything was going great. The guys were having fun with him. The music was going well. He was exceling. He was thriving. And now…

He was laying in a snowbank, covered in his own vomit and shit.

He couldn’t stop being the screw up. He couldn’t stop being the one who didn’t belong. Who didn’t deserve anything. Who wasn’t good enough.

Why did Jungwoo think he could escape his own destiny?

All he needed to do was close his eyes.

Then his phone rang.

Jungwoo was going to ignore it but then it rang again. And again. On the third call, he answered it. He didn’t even know if his voice still worked, but it did.

“Jungwoo?” Taeyong asked on the other end. “Where are you? I’m worried. You’re not home yet.”

Jungwoo took a deep breath. He stared up at the sky. He couldn’t see any stars.

“Don’t worry about me,” Jungwoo said, faintly. “I’m okay. I’ll be home soon.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taeyong tells Jungwoo some news before the Beyond Live concert.
> 
> TW:  
> Laxative abuse (non-graphic)  
> Self-induced vomiting

Eventually, Jungwoo was able to get up from the snow. He knew he had to be freezing. His clothes were wet and he wasn’t wearing his coat, still carrying it.

But he didn’t feel it.

He dragged himself over to the nearest restaurant and asked for a few takeout bags. The old man hardly looked up as he gave them to Jungwoo. There was an alley nearby, dark and deserted. Jungwoo shuffled next to a dumpster and took his pants and underwear off, squatting because he needed to have a second episode.

A new all-time low. Shitting in an alley.

After he was done, he put his pants and underwear in the bag. He was going to bring them home with him, but on second thought, he tossed them in the open dumpster. He didn’t need those anymore.

Then, freezing and naked from the waist down, Jungwoo put his coat back on and zipped it up. The coat had thick padding that went all the way to his ankles. But the cold didn’t care. It wiggled and snaked it’s way inside. Jungwoo could barely feel his legs or anything else down below.

He didn’t care.

He walked and walked until he thought some of the smell might have evaporated off of him. Then he hailed a taxi to take him the rest of the way. The taxi driver didn’t say a word. Jungwoo didn’t either.

By the time he got home, it was around 11:30pm.

Jungwoo opened the door to the 10th floor dorm, bracing himself for everyone to immediately swarm him and ask him where he’d been.

But the vibe was off. Mark and Yuta were in the living room, but they seemed to be in the middle of a deep conversation. They looked up as Jungwoo came in. Neither of them asked him where he’d been. In fact, Jungwoo felt like he interrupted something.

He hurried to the bathroom.

Inside, Jungwoo shed his coat and the rest of his remaining clothes. He turned the water in the shower on hot, as hot as it would go. Then he stepped inside and sat on the floor, stomach cramping urgently as he began having a third episode. This time, it was coming out of both ends. It didn’t matter that he was in the shower because everything was liquid. The running water muffled any noises, and the mess was instantly washed away.

Jungwoo pressed his face against his knees.

The water was so hot that the thick steam choked him through his heaves and the falling water caused his skin to become bright red. He stayed there, in the same position, until his body had stilled, until the water cooled so it ran warm, all the way to ice cold.

Until he was back where he started.

Jungwoo felt like he could hardly stand when he finally stepped out of the shower. So much for being in good condition for tomorrow. All he wanted to do was lose a pound so he could zip up his pants properly. Now he felt utterly destroyed.

Looking at himself in the mirror, Jungwoo realized his looked the same way. His face was so pale, his eyes sunken in and his damn face was even puffier. Fuck.

He brushed his teeth. But nothing was going to make him feel normal.

Jungwoo tied a towel around his waist and grabbed the rest of his stuff, heading back to his bedroom.

He had just put everything away and slipped into new underwear when there was a knock on the door. Jungwoo opened it right away, expecting to see their manager ready to chew him out. But it was Taeyong.

“Oh.” Jungwoo blinked, surprised. His voice was scratchy and his brain wasn’t working at full capacity, but Taeyong was definitely there. “Hi, hyung.”

Taeyong’s large eyes were warm as they looked Jungwoo over. “Seems like I’ve caught you at the perfect time,” he said, with a joking smile. “But really…” Taeyong had a present in his hands. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Jungwoo swallowed hard.

They knew. They knew it wasn’t the fucking eggnog.

His heart started beating so fast, jumping immediately into overdrive. What would Taeyong say about it? Jungwoo was so scared.

He was so goddamn relieved.

He stepped aside to let Taeyong in.

“I said perfect timing because… look at the present.” Taeyong handed him the box, wrapped in shiny green paper with a white bow. It said Jungwoo on a bright red sticker. “Merry Christmas. I wanted to give these out at the Christmas party but they came a little late, so I gave them out tonight.”

“Thanks, hyung,” Jungwoo said, his voice shaking a bit. “I’ll just—” He put the present on his bed and moved to grab some clothes. But Taeyong stopped him.

“No, open it now,” he said, going to sit on Jaehyun’s bed. That’s when Jungwoo fully realized that Jaehyun wasn’t in their room. He didn’t know where he was.

Jungwoo opened the present.

Inside were a pair of black silk pajamas. Jungwoo pulled them out. The fabric felt delicate and buttery soft against his rough, cold hands. His name written in hangul was stitched across the right-side corner on the front of the long-sleeved top. The pajamas were beautiful.

He didn’t deserve this.

“Hyung…” Jungwoo looked over at him and clutched the pajamas to his chest.

Taeyong chuckled a little. “See? Perfect timing. Try them on.”

Jungwoo was nervous as he slipped them over his head. Would they highlight the filth that surely still clung to him? Would they even fit? But they fit perfectly and they were comfortable and warm, like the way Jungwoo wished someone would have hugged him when he was lying in the snow, completely exhausted.

Jungwoo felt tears coming to his eyes.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thanks, hyung. I love them.”

“They look good.” Taeyong smiled. “I’m glad you like them. You deserve the best.”

Jungwoo bit his lip hard to keep the tears at bay. He didn’t want to call his hyung a liar. But he deserved nothing.

If only he knew what he’d been really doing.

“I was worried,” Taeyong said. “You were out for a long time. Did you do what you needed to do?”

Jungwoo nodded, looking down at his feet. He did what he needed to do but what he needed to do was awful. He wondered if Taeyong could tell. He waited for his leader to say something else or give him a sign. Anything to let Jungwoo knew that he had noticed something was wrong. That he wasn’t scared of the answer if Jungwoo were to tell him the truth. That no matter what Jungwoo said, he wouldn’t hate him.

Taeyong cleared his throat.

“I tried to wait for you,” Taeyong said. “But I knew you needed that time. So I talked to the guys a little earlier.”

Taeyong got up and went to sit on Jungwoo’s unmade, messy bed. He patted the space beside him.

“Sit down,” he said. Jungwoo settled down next to Taeyong. He hadn’t used much soap during his awful shower. He hoped he didn’t smell.

Taeyong patted Jungwoo’s leg. “You know, the concert’s tomorrow,” he said. “We’ve been thinking about this for a while. I’ve been thinking about this for a while.” Taeyong cleared his throat for a moment, before continuing. “After the dress rehearsal today and talking it over with my doctors and leadership… we decided that it’s best if I don’t participate in the concert.”

Jungwoo felt like he’d been punched in the gut.

He didn’t know what to say for a moment. Taeyong was looking at him so closely and he moved his hand to place it over Jungwoo’s and give it a squeeze.

“You know we’ve practiced it both ways.” Taeyong continued, when Jungwoo didn’t say anything. “You’re going to be fine. You’ll be amazing. Everyone will.”

Jungwoo had to remind himself to breathe. “Hyung…” he finally gasped out. “Are you okay?” He knew Taeyong’s back injury had been bothering him more and more lately, but his leader never showed it. Over the course of practicing for the concert, Taeyong had sat out a lot and they’d practiced the alternate versions of the performance without him. When he was practicing with them, he did the moves at 50% effort. But still. Jungwoo didn’t think he’d end up actually missing the concert.

Jungwoo’s heart sped up.

“I’m fine,” Taeyong said, giving Jungwoo’s hand another squeeze. “I promise. I’m fine. I’ll be there… backstage, cheering you all on, all right? We can’t let this affect the performance. We have to show them how strong NCT is… right?”

Jungwoo looked down and nodded, but his heart wouldn’t stop racing. Fans were going to be angry. Fans were going to be watching them more closely, already aware they were watching an inferior performance. All eyes were going to be on him. If Jungwoo screwed up, that would be one more reason for them to say that he dragged the group down and he didn’t deserve to be there. Taeyong wouldn’t be there, drawing eyes to him with his powerful and mesmerizing stage presence.

Jungwoo couldn’t hide.

He knew this was about Taeyong and he needed to be strong for his hyung, but he started shaking. Everyone else had so much bigger problems than him. Taeyong and his back. Jaehyun and his busy filming schedule. Everyone else had real problems. Jungwoo couldn’t burden them with his. They couldn’t change the fact that he was inferior and now he was going to be performing on stage without his leader in pants that wouldn’t fully zip.

He was so tired. Maybe he should never have gotten out of that snowbank.

“Jungwoo-ah?” Taeyong said, giving Jungwoo’s hand another squeeze. “Are you okay? You know you can tell me anything, right? What’s wrong?”

Jungwoo’s heart seized, hearing Taeyong say those words. He could tell him anything? If Jungwoo was honest about what was going on with him, Taeyong would spend all his energy trying to help him and he wouldn’t focus on himself. He couldn’t burden his leader like that.

“I’m… just going to miss you on stage with us,” Jungwoo mumbled.

“I will be there… just backstage. I won’t be far.” Taeyong opened his arms and pulled Jungwoo into a hug. It hurt. Jungwoo’s whole body felt so fragile. But he hugged Taeyong back and leaned into the pain.

At least it blocked some of his terrible thoughts.

Taeyong pulled away and put his hand on the side of Jungwoo’s face, looking him in his eyes.

“You look really pale,” he said. “Get some sleep. I think you’re still feeling a little sick from last night. I’ll get you some tea to help you settle down.”

Taeyong got up and for the first time, Jungwoo noticed how stiff he was he standing up. God, how could he be so selfish. Taeyong was truly hurting from working so hard for their group and Jungwoo had barely noticed. Now instead of Jungwoo taking care of his leader who had injured his back through no fault of his own, Taeyong was getting Jungwoo tea because Jungwoo was dumb enough to take an entire box of laxatives. He did this to himself.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Taeyong shuffled back in the room with a cup of tea for Jungwoo. He watched Jungwoo take his first sips. Jungwoo had to admit, it helped soothe his aching stomach and his raw throat.

“That’s better.” Taeyong smiled at him. “Get some rest, Jungwoo-ah. Tomorrow, we bring our A-game.” He made a fist with a smile. “ _Hwaiting_!”

Jungwoo gave a weak smile of his own. “ _Hwaiting_ , hyung. Thank you.”

“Goodnight.”

Jungwoo drank most of the tea slowly before he put it aside. He was so tired but his body wouldn’t settle down. He got up and turned out the light. He laid in the darkness for a long time.

His last thought before he drifted off to sleep was that he really needed to stop.

*

When Jungwoo woke up, Jaehyun had already left for his filming schedules or maybe he never came back to the room that night. Jungwoo couldn’t tell. Taeil had a morning solo schedule as well. Jungwoo still felt drained as he shuffled to the shower. This time he managed to wash his body and his hair really well. That helped him feel a little bit better.

A little more human.

After he got dressed in a hoodie and track pants, Jungwoo wandered into the kitchen. Mark and Yuta were in the kitchen. Mark was slurping cereal and Yuta was making a smoothie, using his personal blender.

“We don’t really have food,” Mark said, with his mouth full. “But manager hyung said there’s gonna be plenty of food at the venue when we get there.”

Jungwoo nodded. He shouldn’t eat anyway, just in case his pants still didn’t zip. But he felt so weak. He found himself staring at Mark’s cereal. Mark slid the box over to him.

“Have some,” he said.

Jungwoo grabbed a glass of water and sat down in front of the cereal box.

Before he could make a decision, their doorbell buzzed.

“Oh, it’s Doyoung,” Mark said, checking their camera. He jumped up to answer the door.

Doyoung stepped inside, walking with Mark to the kitchen, a serious look on his face.

“I came to pick up my Tupperware,” he said.

Mark and Yuta exchanged a look. Jungwoo felt his blood run cold.

“Uh…” Mark said. “About that—”

Doyoung shook his head impatiently. “I didn’t expect you would wash it out. Just give it to me.”

They all stood there in silence.

“Well?” Doyoung said after a moment. “I know you ate everything by now.”

“About that—” Mark started again.

“We don’t have your Tupperware, Doyoung,” Yuta said.

“What?” Doyoung said.

“We don’t know what happened to it,” Mark said. “It went missing. We never even got to eat the food.”

Jungwoo’s stomach twisted into a hard knot.

Doyoung shook his head and squinted at Mark. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“We don’t know what happened to it,” Yuta said.

“You don’t know what happened to my Tupperware…” Doyoung repeated slowly.

“Yeah,” Mark said. “We couldn’t find it. We looked everywhere. We’re sorry, hyung…”

Doyoung stood there for a moment in silence. Jungwoo watched him clench and then unclench his fists. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

“You lost…” he repeated again. “my Tupperware.”

“We’re really sorry!” Mark said, again. “We really… we truly don’t know what happened.”

Mark glanced at Jungwoo then. Jungwoo couldn’t move.

Doyoung took a step back, shaking his head and then he gave a harsh little laugh. “Are you serious?”

A tense silence took over the room.

Doyoung lifted a hand and let it fall to his side, slapping against his leg. “You lost my Tupperware,” he said, again. “You lost—” He gave the same laugh as last time, obviously not amused.

“We’ll buy you new Tupperware,” Yuta said, softly.

“I need it _now_!” Doyoung snapped. He clenched his hand in a fist again. “I need it right now. I was going to—” He shook his head again, cutting himself off. Jungwoo’s heart started beating faster and faster.

“I was going to…” Doyoung said again, in an eerily calm and steely voice. “I was going to use it to pack some food for Taeyong. For when we do our concert. He needs something… to keep his strength up. He shouldn’t even be there.” Doyoung looked up at them. His dark brown eyes were ice cold.

“You have no idea,” Doyoung said, with a mirthless laugh, sweeping his hand out in front of him. “No idea. Taeyong does so much to shield you. All of you. So you truly don’t know what he’s going through. While you’re here, living in a pigsty, eating our cooking, enjoying our planned Christmas party, thinking about no one but _yourselves_ Taeyong is down there—” Doyoung stomped his foot and pointed at the floor, emphatically. “Doing everything he can to keep you happy so you’ll never see the pain he’s in. So you don’t see how many pills he takes. So you don’t know how he has to sleep flat on the floor. So you don’t hear him crying in the shower. You don’t know _any_ of that stuff and I helped him. Because I want to keep him happy and what makes him happy is making your lives easier. The only thing I asked from you--the only help we ever needed--is for you to give me back my fucking Tupperware and you can’t even do that!”

All three of them were stunned into silence.

“I begged him not to do the dress rehearsal,” Doyoung continued. “Begged him. But he said he had to because he wanted everyone to have a relaxed last practice, so you’ll be ready for the stage today. He wanted to make sure that everyone would be happy, that there were plenty of good memories before he told you. Taeyong spent over five thousand dollars on those fucking… pajamas for 22 people! All because he cares so much about making you all happy. And you didn’t have the respect—” Doyoung whirled around, turning to Jungwoo then. “to come home early like Taeyong asked, so you could be at the team meeting. Instead, Taeyong had to wait up for you because he needed to tell you face to face and then he went to bed late and now—” Doyoung’s voice cracked then and he took a deep breath before looking at Jungwoo again. “Jungwoo, he’s in pain. And he was more concerned about you having way too much fucking eggnog!”

Jungwoo couldn’t breathe.

“Doyoung, calm down,” Yuta said, stepping forward.

“No, I won’t!” Doyoung yelled. “You all deserve to know the truth. Taeyong has been working so hard for you and you do nothing for him. Nothing! You don’t care. Find my fucking Tupperware.”

He turned and left then, slamming the door behind him, loudly.

“Whoa,” Mark said, dropping into the nearest chair.

Yuta looked like he didn’t know what to say.

Jungwoo ran to his room and burst into tears.

He absolutely lost it. He dropped to his knees beside his bed and put his head down against the sheets, crying so hard he thought something inside of him was going to pop. Maybe his lungs because they were heaving so hard. His whole body felt like it was convulsing. He had never cried this hard in his life. He felt like he was drowning. He felt like he would never get it together.

How could he be so selfish and awful? Taeyong was in extreme pain today because of him. Jungwoo didn’t deserve Taeyong’s love and concern. He didn’t deserve to be in this group. He wasn’t sure he deserved to breathe. Maybe that’s why it was so hard.

Knocking on the door. “Jungwoo, let me in,” Yuta said.

Jungwoo couldn’t say anything. He heard the door open and then felt Yuta kneel beside him and wrap his arms around him from behind.

“Doyoung’s just upset,” Yuta said. “You didn’t do anything. Calm down, Jungwoo.”

But Jungwoo couldn’t stop. The sobs kept pouring out of him. He felt like he did last night after taking the laxatives. Totally out of control. Losing everything.

“Shhh, shhhh…” Yuta said. “We have to leave soon, Jungwoo. Shhh… it’s okay…”

It wasn’t okay. None of it. If they ever figured out what Jungwoo had done, they would hate him, even Taeyong, even Lucas. He was the reason they lost the Tupperware. He was the reason Doyoung went off on them. He was the reason Taeyong was in pain. He was the reason, he was the reason, he was the reason—

He was the reason they were going to fail today.

“What’s going on?” Jaehyun’s deep voice rang out, suddenly. Yuta let him go and he heard them both go into the hallway.

Jungwoo couldn’t even cry anymore. His body couldn’t keep up with the intense sobs, but it tried it’s best. He slid down into a heap on the floor.

Jaehyun came back in then. “Jungwoo…” he said. Jungwoo felt Jaehyun touch the back of his head.

He couldn’t stop.

“Should I call the doctor?” Yuta asked, in a soft voice, from the doorway.

“No!” Jungwoo gasped out, coming to his senses some.

“Yuta, leave us alone,” Jaehyun said, not unkindly. Yuta left and closed the door, softly.

“Jungwoo…” Jaehyun said, softly, rubbing his back. “Jungwoo, calm down… please…”

Jungwoo couldn’t say anything. All he could do was cry and shake.

“Jungwoo, please…” Jaehyun said again. He wrapped his arms around Jungwoo from behind and pulled him up into an awkward position so Jungwoo was half-sitting, half-leaning against Jaehyun, splayed between his legs.

Jaehyun held onto him tight to keep him upright. He pressed the side of his face against Jungwoo’s wet and sticky face.

“Shhhh…” Jaehyun whispered at first. And then he began to hum a melody that Jungwoo wasn’t familiar with. It wasn’t one of their songs. Maybe Jaehyun just made it up. Just for him.

“It’s okay…” Jaehyun whispered. “Jungwoo, breathe…”

Jungwoo could feel his heart pounding but the strange thing was that he could feel Jaehyun’s heartbeat racing too, strong beats against his back. Focusing on that helped to calm him down.

“That’s it,” Jaehyun said, in his deep, husky voice. “Just… breathe with me.”

Jungwoo could feel Jaehyun’s chest rise and fall as he took a deep breath. After a moment, Jungwoo took a breath with him. Their chests rose and fell at the same time.

“Good…” Jaehyun said, nodding a little.

Jungwoo focused on Jaehyun’s breathing and the beating of his heart. He focused on Jaehyun’s smell, his light cologne and sporty deodorant and the hint of mint on his breath.

Jungwoo felt himself start to calm down.

“It’s all right…” Jaehyun cooed into Jungwoo’s ear. Jungwoo felt warmth rushing through his body. Being in Jaehyun’s arms like this, even under the worst of circumstances, was like a dream.

“I’ve got you,” Jaehyun whispered.

Jungwoo wanted to stay right here. Just like this. With Jaehyun holding him. It was everything he wanted. He almost felt like his life could be okay.

“You’re so special to me, Jungwoo,” Jaehyun said.

Jungwoo’s heart caught in his throat. He was special to Jaehyun. Was this… did he know? Was this his way of…?

Jungwoo sank back against Jaehyun a little more and Jaehyun squeezed him tighter. Those strong arms around him, they made Jungwoo feel almost brave. He was lightheaded from all the hyperventilating and crying and lack of actual fluids in his body. But he thought he might have a way to finally feel better.

One that didn’t involve food.

Jungwoo turned around in Jaehyun’s arms. Jaehyun brightened when their eyes met.

“Good,” he said. “Let’s—”

Jungwoo leaned in and kissed him.

As soon as his lips touched Jaehyun’s, he knew it was wrong.

Jaehyun completely froze.

Jungwoo pulled away.

Jaehyun didn’t move for a moment. Didn’t react. But when he did, he looked at Jungwoo and his face was turning red. As Jungwoo examined his eyes, he saw that there wasn’t just embarrassment there.

There was pity.

Jungwoo hopped up to his feet.

“Jungwoo…” Jaehyun said. “This… this isn’t the right time to tell you but… I… Johnny—”

Jungwoo bolted out the door.

“Jungwoo, wait!” Jaehyun called, but Jungwoo was running. He paused long enough to grab his shoes and his fanny pack before he left the apartment. He heard someone running after him, possibly Mark because he had passed him in the living room. But Jungwoo took the fire stairs and ran down them, two at a time. At the end, he jumped down a whole half-flight and hurt his ankles on the impact because he wasn’t wearing any shoes. He didn’t stop to put his shoes on until he was two blocks away from the dorm. He didn’t have his coat.

His phone started ringing and ringing.

Jungwoo turned it off.

He hailed the first cab he saw and told him to drive 15 minutes in the opposite direction. He hoped out at a random intersection and began to walk.

He had no idea where he was.

Jungwoo kept walking. And walking. He walked until he couldn’t feel his hands, his feet, his ears or his face. People were giving him strange looks on the street. He kept staring straight ahead.

Until he walked into a mall.

Jungwoo pulled out the facemask he had in his fanny pack and put it on. He happened to see a clock in a store window. It was after 1pm. The concert started at 3pm. He knew they were looking for him. Calling him. Possibly there was a search team from the company. Were the police involved?

He ducked into a bakery.

Jungwoo pointed out everything he wanted without talking, without even thinking. He paid with his phone and left without even saying thank you. He hadn’t been inside long enough to warm up again but that was good. Because after last night, he knew exactly where to go.

 _You deserve this_ , the voice in Jungwoo’s head said. He did. He was trash. He exited the mall and went to hide next to the dumpster that was in the alley on the other side.

The baked items in his bag were warm, sweet, delicious and made with care. They were meant to be savored, to be shared with friends and family. Jungwoo wondered how the cashier at the bakery saw him, this red faced, wild-eyed kid without a coat who pointed out 20 items without saying a word. Did they think Jungwoo was going back to a home with people who loved him? Or did they see him for the loser he really was?

Jungwoo stuffed a chunk of cake in his mouth.

This time, he gave into his animal instincts. It was the only way he could survive these next moments. He didn’t want to be there. He didn’t want to feel anything.

He kept cramming food in his mouth.

At least he had learned something from the first couple of times. He needed liquid. Jungwoo had gotten a few bottles of milk and he chugged them in-between stuffing his face with bread, cake, donuts and other pastries. He didn’t know what they were. He didn’t look at them. He didn’t taste them. He just chewed and swallowed, chewed and swallowed and drank. Right next to a dumpster, crouched down like a rat in the dark.

Just like he deserved.

By the time he was done, all of the food was gone and he could hardly breathe. If he tried to put those stupid pants on now, the stylist would scream. Jungwoo almost laughed to himself. Oh, look what I can do, he thought. I’ll show you my trick.

He turned to the wall and stuck his finger down his throat.

Practice really did make perfect, Jungwoo thought, as he squatted and the first wave came up. With performing, he needed lots of practice. But with puking, it felt like he was already perfecting that. He wiggled his finger around the back of his throat and vomited again.

This time, he had gotten the idea to start with something he could recognize so he’d know when he’d gotten it all out. The first slice of cake he ate was red velvet. He kept gagging himself and vomiting until he saw red velvet cake again, muddy reddish brown against the black asphalt.

Jungwoo sucked into a breath, stepping back from the huge puddle of vomit that was spreading everywhere.

He had never felt so accomplished.

Jungwoo tipped his head back and closed his eyes, feeling that blissful wave of calm overtake him. He finally felt like he could breathe. After hours of turmoil, his body was finally calming down. It felt so good. It felt great to finally be good at something in his life.

Jungwoo’s eyes snapped open.

He wasn’t going to let them take this away from him.

Kim Jungwoo might be a screw-up, but he was finally going to learn how to keep a secret.

He could do it. If he was going to go back there, he needed _something_ on his side.

Because no one else was.

Jungwoo checked his watch. It was after 2pm. He knew he could never do something as horrible as miss the concert. He was already horrible enough on his own.

Jungwoo wiped his mouth on his hoodie. Then he called a cab.

*

No one was near the entrance when Jungwoo slipped inside the studio. All the managers and directors and other people in charge were nowhere to be seen. He walked towards the back, where everyone was running around, getting ready. He finally started seeing his bandmates, all dressed for the concert, and he felt their eyes on him, but no one was saying anything. Mark and Haechan were sitting in the hallway and they both gasped when they saw him.

“Dude!” Mark exclaimed. “Are you okay?”

“Hyung,” Haechan said. “You are in sooooooooooo much trouble.”

Jungwoo didn’t acknowledge them. He kept walking until he saw an open door. He paused when he spotted Jaehyun. Moving closer, he saw that Jaehyun was standing in a circle with Johnny, Yuta, Doyoung, Taeil and Taeyong, who was sitting in a chair.

“I’ve never seen him like that before,” Jaehyun said, in a low voice. Jungwoo moved closer. Suddenly, he knew.

“Stop talking about me!” he yelled, stepping into the doorway. Everyone in the room turned to look at him.

“Jungwoo!” Taeyong exclaimed. “We—”

“You told them, didn’t you?” Jungwoo said, his glare meeting Jaehyun’s surprised face. Jaehyun opened his mouth and then closed it. Johnny looked away. Everyone else was staring at them.

They totally knew.

Jungwoo stepped over to Jaehyun, right into his face.

“Stop telling everyone my fucking business!” he screamed at Jaehyun.

“Whoa!” Johnny said, stepping between the two of them. “He’s just trying to _help_ you.”

“Get out of my face,” Jungwoo growled.

“Watch it, Jungwoo,” Johnny warned.

“Stop it,” Jaehyun said in a low voice. “Johnny—”

Johnny closed his eyes for a moment before he stepped aside.

“Jungwoo…” Jaehyun stepped forward and grabbed Jungwoo’s hands. “Jungwoo, your hands are like ice.”

Jungwoo snatched them back. “Don’t fucking touch me,” he growled. Jaehyun shrank away.

“Where have you been?” Taeyong said from behind him. “You’re not even wearing a coat—”

“Nobody worry about me!” Jungwoo yelled, looking at all of them. “No one talk about me. Ever again!”

Then the stage director was in the doorway, glaring at Jungwoo. He waved him over with a short crook of his finger.

“Get over here,” the stage director said in a low, scary voice. “Now.”

Jungwoo turned and followed the stage director out without another word. The staff threw him in a chair. They covered him in warming blankets. They started on his hair and makeup, 4 people working on him at the same time. When he finally put on those pants, they fucking zipped.

There was no time for lectures. Jungwoo was sure that would come later. There was no time for fighting. No one was talking to him. Which was great. This was exactly what Jungwoo wanted.

There was no time for thinking.

There was only showtime.

And the next time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas everyone. Thanks so much for the comments/kudos.
> 
> Feel better, TY.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the concert, Jungwoo makes a decision.
> 
> TW:  
> Smoking  
> Self-Induced Vomiting

The concert went as well as it could. After all, everyone was a professional, including Jungwoo. He was dehydrated. He felt cold. There was hardly any time for him to prepare between getting ready and getting in front of the cameras. He was filled with a burning rage that he had never experienced before. His leader wasn’t there to give him a comforting look or touch. He wasn’t sure he wanted him to. Jungwoo was a whirlwind of emotions and he was _so_ tired. But on stage that didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered.

Jungwoo hit his notes. He did his moves. He stood on all the correct marks. He looked in the right camera. He talked when he needed to. Joked when he needed to. He was silly and cute and completely on brand. They didn’t just learn how to sing and dance, they learned how to have a certain personality so it would always come through, no matter how you really felt. while they practiced, they learned to have a certain personality. He even joked with Johnny. Jungwoo was there but he wasn’t there. He was on autopilot.

His fucking pants stayed zipped.

At the end everyone was clapping and cheering, balloons came down to help them celebrate a job well done. They waved to the fans on camera. They smiled and hugged and jumped around together. Everything was scripted. Everything was on cue.

Jungwoo felt nothing.

The concert only lasted a couple of hours. Jungwoo couldn’t escape the consequences of his actions forever. After the show, their head manager summoned him to a small room. When Jungwoo came in, he could see the pain on Taeyong’s face as he sat at a small table, but when his leader spotted him, he immediately smiled.

“Jungwoo,” he said. “You did a great job out there. But we were so worried about you.”

“Don’t,” Jungwoo said. He crossed his arms, standing near the doorway. Taeyong frowned.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “I could tell something was wrong last night but I didn’t want to push. You were shaking. Are you sick? Did something happen?”

Jungwoo shook his head. Doyoung and Jaehyun came in and then their manager. They all stood around awkwardly until their manager broke the silence. He looked directly at Jungwoo.

“What happened today cannot happen again,” he said, in a no-nonsense voice.

Jungwoo nodded.

“Especially now, with the pandemic,” the manager said. “When you’re wandering around like that, you’re putting us all in danger. When we don’t know where you are, you are putting the team through undue stress. Do you understand?”

Jungwoo nodded again and he felt tears clogging the back of his throat, despite his battle to keep his face completely blank. No, he wasn’t going to give in.

“You’re not to go anywhere by yourself for the foreseeable future. Got it?”

Jungwoo glanced at Jaehyun and Doyoung, standing over to his right. Did they really need to witness him being chewed out and punished? Jungwoo didn’t say anything.

“Doyoung…” Taeyong prompted.

Jungwoo watched his hyung heave a big sigh. Then Doyoung slid his eyes over to Jungwoo.

“Look,” he said. “I’m not going to apologize for what I said.”

“Doyoung--” Taeyong said, again, his tone warning.

“No, Taeyong,” Doyoung said. “I will apologize for the way I said it. I shouldn’t have yelled. For that, I apologize.”

Doyoung fixed his gaze on him. Jungwoo looked away.

“But it was the truth.”

“I didn’t ask you to speak for me,” Taeyong said, quietly.

“Someone needed to say it.”

“Doesn’t feel good when someone talks about you behind your back,” Jungwoo muttered. “Does it?”

“Jungwoo, I’m not trying to talk about you behind your back,” Jaehyun said. “I was worried about you. You’ve been upset, sick, missing. I didn’t know what to do.”

“You didn’t have to tell them I kissed you,” Jungwoo said, giving his hyung a steely look. “That’s just gossip.”

Jaehyun sucked in his breath and looked at the floor.

“I’m sorry, Jungwoo,” Jaehyun whispered. “I really am. I care about you. I love you.”

Jungwoo took a step back and shook his head. “Save it,” he said.

“Okay, let’s table this conversation,” their manager said. “I think we all said what needed to be said for now. Everyone should be at the vans in 15 minutes.”

Jungwoo left the room before anyone could say anything else. He got undressed and took off his make up alone in a bathroom stall instead of the dressing room. Naked, he rubbed his hand over his stomach. It wasn’t as doughy anymore. If he was consistent with throwing up, he could see it working for him. Jungwoo had never been the skinniest guy on the team. It never used to bother him but...

He wasn’t sure he liked the old Jungwoo very much.

He had been too soft. Too emotional. Too sensitive. That’s why he had to take the hiatus last time, after all. If he didn’t want that to happen again, he needed to be tougher. Leaner. Meaner. He had to stop taking people’s shit and having useless crushes on people who didn’t see him as anything but… a cute puppy.

He needed to grow up.

Back at the dorm, Jungwoo went straight to his room. He found all his Snoopy stuffed stuff, put it in a trash bag, took them out to the trash chute in the hallways and threw the bag inside. Then he went straight to bed without showering. He didn’t even get out of his clothes. Just crawled under the covers and pulled them over his head.

After a few moments, there was a knock on the door.

He heard the door open and then Mark’s whispered voice, “Dude, he’s sleeping.”

Then someone flicked the lights on. Haechan’s loud voice, “Hyung, it’s 7pm.”

“Jungwoo?” Mark said.

Jungwoo felt them both creep into the room and stare at him. Finally, he pulled the covers down and glared.

“Oh, hello,” Haechan said, mildly.

Jungwoo didn’t say anything.

“You ran away from home today?” Haechan prompted. He sat on the floor next to Jungwoo’s bed and Mark joined him.

“I was really worried about you when I saw you run out of the apartment,” Mark said.

“Honestly…” Haechan leaned back on his hands, stretching his legs out of him. “I’m impressed you had the guts.”

Jungwoo frowned as he sat up. Even his dongsaeng thought he was a pussy. Just another sign of how desperately he needed to change.

“I guess you heard about Jaehyun and Johnny,” Haechan said, craning his neck back to look at Jungwoo. “They paid me not to expose them. You know, on account of your crush. They wanted to wait to tell you. Bad idea.”

Jungwoo’s gut clenched. Had he been that obvious? Haechan confirmed that everyone knew Jungwoo had tried to kiss Jaehyun and Jaehyun rejected him. But it didn’t matter. He was no longer going to be that person. The guy who ended up crying hysterically on the floor just because someone yelled at him. The pathetic guy that had kissed his roommate, gotten rejected and then laughed at by everyone.

Not anymore.

“Haechan…” Mark chided.

“It’s the truth.”

Jungwoo stared at Haechan, blankly. “So, I guess you’re my new roommate,” he said, tonelessly.

“Oh, hell no,” Haechan said, seriously. “You can pay me to lie but you can’t pay me to live amongst the filth…”

“Hey!” Mark said.

“I’m perfectly happy where I am,” Haechan said. “Johnny, too. And Jaehyun… he still wants to be your roommate, Jungwoo. He was crying while you were missing.”

Jungwoo looked over at Haechan, slowly. Was he serious? Haechan nodded.

“He felt really guilty.”

Jungwoo’s heart lifted for a moment. But then he remembered who he was now. So he took a deep breath and shook his head. He reminded himself that he didn’t care.

“I… _almost_ cried,” Mark volunteered.

“And I don’t have emotions,” Haechan said. He and Mark laughed. That’s how Jungwoo needed to be. He sat up and settled a pillow over his lap.

“But Johnny and Jaehyun wanted some alone time and they thought you might need some space, so—” Haechan shrugged his shoulder again. “I’m here. For tonight.”

“Sleepover in my room?” Mark suggested. “Please, Jungwoo.”

Sleepovers. Is that what grown men did? Jungwoo leaned back against the wall, feeling unconvinced.

“I wanna hear all about your adventures,” Haechan said. “You keep being out and about by yourself. I’m jealous.”

Oh yes, Jungwoo thought. Where should I start? Puking in an alley or shitting myself?

Jungwoo took a deep breath.

Next time when he did that stuff, he was going to be more in control.

“Please?” Mark said, again.

Jungwoo sat there for a moment. Then he fixed his gaze on Haechan. He needed to know the truth and everyone else seemed to want to play games with him.

“Tell me, something,” he said. “Did _everyone_ know I had a crush on Jaehyun?”

Haechan raised his eyebrows.

“I didn’t know,” Mark piped up. Haechan gave him a look. Mark chuckled a little.

“I don’t know anything…” he clarified.

“Bingo,” Haechan said, pointing at Mark.

“I guess I don’t count.” Mark chuckled, looking confused.

Haechan turned back to Jungwoo. “Yes, we knew. People who know stuff. Look, Jungwoo, it’s no big deal. We all have hopeless crushes in our life.” Haechan looked at Mark and grinned. “Like Mark and that choreographer.”

“Hey!” Mark said. “I did not—”

“Or should I say, Kang Dan—”

Mark grabbed a pillow from Jungwoo’s bed and whacked Haechan with it before he could go any further.

“You’re gonna regret that!” Haechan said. He grabbed a pillow from Jaehyun’s bed and hit Mark over the head with it.

“What about your hopeless crush!” Mark said, wildly lashing out at Haechan with the pillow.

“I don’t have hopeless crushes,” Haechan said. “If I like them, they like me back!”

They continued their pillow fight, yelling at each other and swinging the pillows wildly until one caught Jungwoo in the chest.

“Hey!” Jungwoo said, remembering his resolve. He was not going to take shit anymore. He grabbed the pillow from his lap and cracked Haechan over the back.

“Oh, it’s on, hyung!” Haechan yelled.

Jungwoo slipped down to the floor and they started beating each other with pillows. It evolved into shouting, running around the room, jumping on the beds, pinning each other on the floor, hitting each other hard. It was strangely cathartic. Jungwoo was laughing but he was not playing. It felt good to beat someone else up instead of only himself.

It didn’t end until Jungwoo whacked Mark across the face and somehow, he ended up getting a bloody nose. They all went to the kitchen to get water and Jungwoo got Mark an ice pack as he leaned forward and held a bunch of tissues against his nose.

“That was fun,” Mark said, in a muffled voice, no hint of sarcasm.

“Yeah! Let’s get our aggression out!” Haechan said. He gave Jungwoo a grin and raised his eyebrows. Luckily, Yuta and Taeil didn’t check on them. Jungwoo didn’t want to explain anything to his traitor hyungs.

“Is your nose okay?” Jungwoo asked. He really hadn’t meant to do that. Mark had done nothing to him. Mark gave him a thumbs up, now holding the ice pack to his face along with the tissues.

“Let’s get pizza!” Mark said.

“And beer,” Haechan said. “Don’t forget it.”

“I’ll treat you guys,” Jungwoo said. He ordered the pizza, beer, salad, chicken wings and cookies for dessert.

They holed themselves up in Mark’s room. “Manager hyung said something about like… he doesn’t get paid enough for this,” Mark said, with a chuckle as they closed the door. “He’s not here this weekend.”

“I think just about everyone is sick of being here,” Haechan said. “That’s why we’re so jealous you keep getting to go out, Jungwoo hyung.”

“Not anymore…” Jungwoo muttered.

“Just run away again,” Haechan said, with a teasing smile. “You’re good at it.”

Jungwoo allowed himself to smile, wryly. “Tell me what people have been saying about me.” He looked up and met Haechan’s eyes as he sat on the manager’s bed. “All of it.”

“Ohhhh!” Haechan’s eyes went wide and round as he perched himself on Mark’s bed, crossing his legs. “You really wanna know?”

“What do they say about me?” Mark said, from the floor, still dealing with his bloody nose.

“You’re clueless.”

“That’s true.”

“Yeah, I wanna know,” Jungwoo said, fixing his gaze on Haechan.

“Okay, I think most of it you already know…” Haechan said, thoughtfully. “But at the Christmas party, Johnny has really been trying to figure out how you got so drunk because he didn’t serve you much. And he said he didn’t put a lot of rum in it. The only drunk person was Mark because he was drinking beer.”

“I was drunk?” Mark said, tipping his head back now that his nose had stopped bleeding.

Haechan rolled his eyes. “See what I mean?”

“Okay, but I mean, before that,” Jungwoo said.

“Like when?”

“When I was gone…” Jungwoo murmured. For the first time, he realized he really wanted to know.

“You weren’t gone that much,” Haechan reminded him. It was true, Jungwoo had still been practicing with the team. But he was living at home and not participating in any team activities publicly. “Honestly, no one said much. They were just worried about you. They didn’t want to see you so upset and crying all the time. We were all happy you had a break.”

Jungwoo nodded. Well, they weren’t going to be seeing him cry anymore.

“How long have Johnny and Jaehyun been dating?” Jungwoo mumbled.

“It’s really new. Like… not even a month, I don’t think,” Haechan said. “I’m not their anniversary timekeeper, but it’s new. It’s not like they’ve been dating in secret for years.”

That made Jungwoo feel a little better. He wasn’t completely stupid with his dumb feelings for Jaehyun.

It didn’t matter anymore. That was all in the past.

“You wanna know what happened while you were missing?” Haechan asked, without prompting.

Jungwoo didn’t really want to know, but he shrugged anyway.

“I tried to get you,” Mark said. “But you ran too fast and I didn’t really know what was going on.”

“As usual.” Haechan scoffed. “But Jaehyun and Yuta ran out to try to find you. Then Jaehyun called Johnny and he got Johnny to drive him around, looking. When they couldn’t find you like in the next half hour, that’s when they told the managers and everyone.”

“How nice of them,” Jungwoo said, rolling his eyes.

“We had to go to the venue, but the managers and staff were looking for you. Like they called everyone who was off to go looking for you. They might hate you.”

Jungwoo crossed his arms and shrugged.

“I’m liking this attitude!” Haechan said, with a laugh.

“Where did you go?” Mark asked.

“Just…” Jungwoo shook his head. There was no way he was getting into it with them. “Just away.”

“I totally get it,” Haechan said. “Seriously.”

“Taeyong said that you would come back,” Mark said. “You wouldn’t miss the show unless you were really… hurt or sick or kidnapped or something. He was right.”

Jungwoo felt his chest tighten a little bit. The way his leader always believed in him… Jungwoo took a deep breath. It didn’t matter. Taeyong was part of this. He was gossiping about him, too.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Jungwoo said. “This is boring.”

“I agree,” Haechan said. “Enough about you!”

“Let’s change into the pajamas that Taeyong got us,” Mark said.

They all dressed in their silk pajamas. Even though Jungwoo was mad at Taeyong, he still liked the pajamas.

He wished that he wasn’t mad at Taeyong.

The food came shortly after that. Finally, Jungwoo thought. It was time to forget.

He made sure to start with the salad and he drank a lot of beer. The rest was easy. They talked, just shooting the shit, and Jungwoo ate until he could no longer think. When Mark was getting sleepy and Haechan was getting tipsy, Jungwoo excused himself and went to the bathroom.

The dorm was quiet. Jungwoo ran the shower. It was getting easier every time and he was grateful to be puking into the toilet indoors, and not somewhere outside cold and gross. Still, the whole thing was always going to be a little gross. He had to flush a couple of times before he saw the green again.

When he stood up he felt the head rush and the blissful calm.

It was better than beer.

Jungwoo brushed his teeth and then stared in the mirror until his face was a little less red. It was still puffy. He didn’t know what to do about that.

Jungwoo paused to peek inside his bedroom before he headed down the hall. Jaehyun still wasn’t there.

By the time he got back to the room, Haechan and Mark had pushed the two beds together and Jungwoo joined them, flopping between them.

“Where have you been?” Haechan asked.

“Bathroom.”

“You go there a lot,” Mark said, drowsily.

“Everyone needs to go to the bathroom,” Haechan said. “It’s, like, natural.”

“But Jungwoo goes a lot,” Mark said.

“Don’t diss the man’s bladder,” Haechan said.

They chatted a little more before Mark and Haechan were asleep on either side of him. Jungwoo lay there, quietly in the dark, his mind unable to shut off.

If Jungwoo was going to continue, he couldn’t be too suspicious.

He’d have to figure something else out.

*

After the concert, they had a bit of a break, which was great for Jungwoo. He didn’t see his teammates as much as he did when they were practicing for year end shows and the Beyond Live concert. The units were preparing for their next comebacks but nothing was in the near future, so it wasn’t intense. A lot of the guys had solo schedules.

Not Jungwoo, though.

He expected that to change soon.

He was starting to see his abs again.

His pants from the Beyond Live concert were loose.

Jungwoo didn’t see a lot of Jaehyun. He busy with filming and probably with seeing Johnny. When they were in the room together, Jungwoo refused to talk to him. Jaehyun tried to get him to talk, apologized, sent him messages, notes, small gifts, things that would have thrilled Jungwoo just a few weeks earlier.

Now, he was untouchable.

He wasn’t that same weak, pathetic person who had a crush on his older, handsome roommate. Jaehyun was just a co-worker to him. They didn’t need to have any relationship outside of that.

At least, that’s what Jungwoo told himself. And he could only really convince himself when he was eating.

He wasn’t talking much to the other hyungs either. Each time he saw them, all he could think about was when they were standing in a circle, listening as Jaehyun told them the very amusing story about how Jungwoo kissed him and wasn’t it crazy that Jungwoo actually thought he had a shot? He could hear them laughing and laughing and it made Jungwoo’s whole body get hot, his heart pound, his breathing go a little shallower.

He couldn’t concentrate on that.

He needed to concentrate on something else.

Throwing up after every meal seemed like a simple idea, but in reality it was harder than Jungwoo thought. If they were practicing, he didn’t have a lot of time, so even though he could sneak away, he wasn’t always able to get the job done before he had to go. At home, he had to be careful about being in the bathroom too much. Plus, the plumbing was a problem. They had all clogged the toilet doing normal stuff. Jungwoo was worried about what puking all the time could do.

Slowly but surely, it was working. He weighed himself every day. His stomach seemed to be getting flatter and his thighs thinner. The only thing he couldn’t seem to get rid of were his puffy cheeks.

Jungwoo actually missed their super busy schedules. He was home a lot more often now and since he wasn’t allowed to leave the apartment without supervision, sometimes he had to go without purging. There were too many people around, too many eyes on him, only two bathrooms. He couldn’t take the risk.

Jungwoo was still figuring out what to do about that.

Luckily, today Jungwoo was at the dance studio. During their lunch break, he ignored everyone to go eat lunch in a back staircase he’d found. It was right next to the bathroom on the other side of a door, so he could easily get rid of everything and be back to practice on time. He bought a bunch of sandwiches from the convenience store and stashed them in a large, insulated, reusable lunch bag that looked like it could hold lunch for two people.

Perfect for Jungwoo.

Jungwoo unwrapped the sandwiches he’d brought with him and got to work. He stuffed the first one in his mouth. He was starting on the second one when he heard someone behind him clear their throat.

“So this is where you go,” A familiar voice said. Jungwoo jumped up and turned around. Johnny was standing on one of the steps just above him.

“I followed you,” Johnny said.

Jungwoo wanted to say, “fuck off” but he restrained himself.

“What do you want?” he asked, in a low voice.

“I want to talk to you,” Johnny said. He sat down on the step right above Jungwoo.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Jungwoo mumbled, turning away. Now his hiding space was ruined and he didn’t know where he was going to go from here.

“What is your problem?” Johnny asked. “You’ve been acting like a pissy child for weeks.”

Jungwoo turned back to Johnny and glared. He didn’t trust himself to speak. But he knew he was _not_ a child.

“You didn’t used to be like this,” Johnny said.

“Sorry I kissed your boyfriend,” Jungwoo said. “Happy?”

“You know that’s not what this is about,” Johnny said. “Jaehyun’s been trying to talk to you. He’s really hurt.”

Jungwoo scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“Seriously! What is this attitude?” Johnny leaned in and stared into Jungwoo’s eyes hard for a moment. Despite himself, Jungwoo couldn’t help leaning away.

“Jungwoo, what did you expect him to do? He found you having a total nervous breakdown and then you ran away. He had to tell the whole story. He didn’t know what else to do. And we tried to keep it under wraps. We drove everywhere looking for you. We couldn’t find you. We needed help. He was beside himself. He blamed himself. If anything happened to you, he would be destroyed. He still blames himself because you’re acting like this! It’s not fair and you know it.”

Jungwoo took a shallow breath and tried to ignore the burning in his chest. He knew he was hurting Jaehyun, but that’s what he meant to do. Right?

He bit the inside of his cheek to keep the weak part of him that wanted to give in at bay.

“Jaehyun misses you,” Johnny continued. “He’s been trying everything he can think of to get through to you. I think we all have. We miss you, Jungwoo.”

“You don’t give a shit about me,” Jungwoo said.

“That’s not true,” Johnny said.

“You only care if I’m your funny puppy dog or your punching bag. So you can write ugly all over me! And I won’t say a word.” Jungwoo stood up, towering over Johnny now, holding the rest of his lunch. “I get it. But you need to find someone else to laugh at in this group. And tell Jaehyun that he can move out. I don’t care.”

“Jungwoo!” Johnny called, as Jungwoo pushed through the door on the landing below that led to the bathrooms. But he didn’t want Johnny to find him in there, so he kept walking. It was in an office suite in the SM building, but most of the office staff were working from home. He walked to the end of the hall and ducked into a conference room.

Jungwoo stared out of the large, panel wall windows as the street down below. They were on the 20th floor.

It was a long way down.

No matter how he thought about it, Jungwoo felt trapped.

He looked down at the lunch bag in his hand. He needed to finish the job.

It helped, cramming the rest of the sandwiches and the chips in his mouth and chasing it with two bottles of soda. But he didn’t know what to do after that. He was scared Johnny would be waiting for him at the entrance to the stairs, so he wouldn’t be able to duck into the bathroom.

Then he got an idea.

The conference room had a small trashcan with a plastic liner. He crouched in front of it and took a deep breath. He made sure to be quiet, even though no one was around.

No one could find him like this.

When he finished purging, he lifted the plastic liner out of the trash can carefully and tied it off.

Then he stashed it in his lunch bag. When he came back to the practice room, no one looked at him.

This seemed like the perfect plan.

Now Jungwoo had another option. If he couldn’t get to a bathroom, he snuck off somewhere private with a stash of plastic bags. He even kept them in his room and used them after dinner at home. Jaehyun wasn’t using their room much anyway. After his talk with Johnny, Jaehyun seemed to be the one avoiding him now.

Which was fine with Jungwoo. It was just what he wanted. Right?

He kept telling himself that.

One day, he was purging in a random hallway at SM and the bag completely broke. It was disgusting, took a long time to clean up and interrupted his routine so he could feel the rest of his food hardening into a rock in the pit of his stomach during the rest of practice. The next day, the scale went up three pounds.

Sometimes, Jungwoo had to ask himself if it was worth it.

He always told himself that it was.

Jungwoo was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, when someone knocked on the inside of the open door.

“Jungwoo!” Lucas stood there with a cocky grin.

“Lucas,” Jungwoo said, sitting up quickly. “What are you doing here?”

“Let’s smoke break. Come on.” Lucas strode across the room in two long steps and grabbed Jungwoo’s hand, pulling him to his feet.

“I’m not really allowed outside of the dorm,” Jungwoo said, as Lucas pulled him to the front door.

“I’ll sneak you out.” Lucas grinned. “Don’t worry.”

They both put on their shoes and headed out. Mark said he’d cover for them.

Lucas slipped his arm through Jungwoo’s. “I haven’t see you in a while. How ya doing, friend?”

Jungwoo’s heart clenched. He really wished he could tell Lucas everything.

“I… don’t know,” Jungwoo ended up saying. It was as close to the truth as he could get.

“Well, you look good,” Lucas said, looking him over as they walked down the stairs to the smoking area of the heated courtyard that was tucked away on the ground floor of the building. “You look skinny.”

“I do?” Jungwoo looked down at himself.

“Yeah, you’ve lost some weight.”

Jungwoo smiled to himself. It was the first time he’d gotten confirmation.

They pushed through a door and stepped into a screened in area with a couple of ashtrays available. Nobody else was there.

“Can you smoke without coughing?” Lucas handed Jungwoo a cigarette.

“I haven’t been able to get away,” Jungwoo said. “I don’t know.”

They both lit up and went to sit on the astroturf in the far left corner. Lucas stretched his long legs out in front of him and Jungwoo sat cross-legged beside him.

“I missed you,” Lucas said, looking over at Jungwoo. Jungwoo smiled, a bit flustered.

“I missed you, too,” he said. It really sucked when their schedules didn’t overlap and he didn’t get to see Lucas for long periods of time. When Jungwoo was binging, he didn’t have to think about that either.

“I never really got to talk to you after…” Lucas said. “The concert. You know, when things went down.”

Jungwoo nodded, looking down at the ground for a moment before he took a long drag of his cigarette.

He ended up in a coughing fit.

“Dude!” Lucas laughed, patting his back. “Why doesn’t this work for you anymore?”

“I don’t know,” Jungwoo said, with a laugh of his own.

“At least you found another way to stay skinny.” Lucas lifted his cigarette a bit. “This is all I have.”

Jungwoo briefly considered telling Lucas his secret. But he decided it was too risky.

“So, how are you doing?” Lucas prompted.

Jungwoo shrugged, looking over at his friend. He tried to take a short puff, but he was still coughing.

“Maybe you should give it up,” Lucas said. Jungwoo got up and snuffed his cigarette into the nearest ashtray. He sat next to Lucas with a little laugh.

“Yeah, I meant to tell you,” Lucas said. “Doyoung sounded like he was a real asshole.”

Jungwoo made a face. The memory of that day still hit him hard. He hadn’t talked to Doyoung since they met after the concert and Doyoung hadn’t talked to him either.

“He was,” Jungwoo mumbled.

“I’m always on your side,” Lucas said. “Like… you can call me if you need anything. You know that, right? I’ll kick some ass.”

Jungwoo turned to Lucas, honestly surprised. Lucas grinned, patting Jungwoo’s leg.

“Me and the boys,” Lucas said. “We fight all the time. But we make up. So… have you made up, yet?”

Jungwoo shook his head. “I don’t know if I want to,” he admitted.

“You will,” Lucas said, like he was the hyung and Jungwoo was the dongsaeng. “It just comes with time. It’s not forever. Nothing is.”

Jungwoo nodded slowly. He loved it when his friend got surprisingly deep. He knew Lucas was right, but he didn’t see things turning around anytime soon.

He rested his head on Lucas’s shoulder and Lucas rested his head on top of Jungwoo’s hair.

They sat together like that for a long time.

Eventually, Jungwoo had to get back to the dorm. He said bye to Lucas and decided to take the long way around to the private entrance on the side of the building, heading outside for some fresh air. As he was walking through the crunchy, mostly frozen grass, he noticed something sticking out of a bush that was half-covered with melted snow.

Jungwoo stepped closer and tugged it out.

He could hardly believe it.

It was the bag he’d tossed off the balcony a few weeks ago.

Doyoung’s Tupperware.

Jungwoo opened the bag in amazement. It had been here on the side of the building the whole time? He thought for sure someone had taken it.

He shook the snow off and examined each of the containers. They were all still there. Doyoung’s initials practically glowed, written neatly in bright black sharpie. Not a single smudge.

Jungwoo’s first thought was, Doyoung will be pleased.

Just as quickly, he took the thought back. He remembered how Doyoung refused to apologize to him, even though Taeyong asked. The nasty words that came out of Doyoung’s mouth. He knew Doyoung was upset and stressed but… it was fucking Tupperware. All it did was hold food.

Then Jungwoo got another idea.

He successfully snuck back into his room with the bag. The Tupperware was a good size, Jungwoo determined. He wouldn’t have to worry about making too much of a mess f he was careful and aimed right. He could put towels down. He wouldn’t have to worry about it breaking. And the lids would give him a few days if he had trouble sneaking out of the dorm immediately to get rid of it. That had been a problem with the plastic bags.

This was a perfect solution.

Jungwoo sat with Mark, Yuta and Taeil at dinner. As usual, Jaehyun wasn’t there. They had spaghetti and meatballs that Taeil made. Jungwoo liked it a lot but he tried not to show it, even as he helped himself to a third plate.

Afterwards, back in his room, he locked his door. He cranked up his music and chugged a bottle of water.

Jungwoo paused to look at himself in Jaehyun’s full length mirror. His clothes were hanging off his body. But that was what he wanted. He stared at the dark circles under his eyes and his puffy cheeks. He thought about how he hadn’t talked to half of his members in weeks. He thought about the wounded looks Jaehyun gave him and how he missed him so much. He thought about how he hadn’t checked on Taeyong, not even once. And there was no way he could ask Doyoung how he was doing.

His heart clenched a little. He heard that voice in his head. The one that said he was a terrible person. But instead of giving into it, he narrowed his eyes. He took a deep breath. He pushed the voice and then regrets and all the bad feelings down, into the pit of his stomach, ready to be purged along with all the rest of it.

You’re stronger, Kim Jungwoo, he told himself. You don’t take any shit. This is worth it.

Then he opened one of the Tupperware containers and began.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The members surprise Jungwoo on his birthday.
> 
> TW  
> Self-Induced vomiting  
> Suicidal thoughts

Jungwoo slept in late on the morning of his birthday. They didn’t have any schedules until the afternoon, so he figured he would laze around until then. Once he was awake, he laid on his back, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t want to see anyone.

Jaehyun’s bed remained unused.

That was fine.

Jungwoo sat up when he heard a knock on the door. “Jungwoo?” Mark called. “Come watch TV with me.”

Jungwoo dragged himself out of bed and put on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt before he headed out to join Mark on the couch.

“Ten recommended me this show,” Mark said. “I don’t know if I like it though.” He turned on Netflix. Jungwoo sat there, not really paying attention. His head felt foggy even though he’d gotten plenty of sleep. Maybe he needed to eat.

There was a knock on the door. “Oh, wonder who that could be…” Mark said, in a sing-song voice that meant he knew exactly who it was.

Jungwoo leaned back against the couch and braced himself.

“Hey!” Mark said, as all the other 127 members piled in the door, carrying balloons and presents. “Oh, Jungwoo, look.”

Jungwoo glanced over. He didn’t move.

“Happy birthday!” everyone shouted, walking over to him. Jungwoo bit his lower lip and sighed through his nose. But he straightened up a little when he saw Taeyong, walking with them. Jaehyun was there, too.

All the guys surrounded him and sang Happy Birthday in some jazzy way. Jungwoo wondered if this was as forced to them as it felt to him. When they were done, everyone clapped the best they could with stuff in their hands.

Jungwoo didn’t clap.

They piled presents on the coffee table in front of him. Everyone was smiling fakely and looking at each other. Jungwoo finally glanced at his leader, who was staring at him.

“Sooooo…” Johnny said, breaking the weird silence after the song when Jungwoo gave no reaction. “Happy birthday. Uh… birthday breakfast.” He held up what he was holding, which was a waffle maker. Haechan had one too. Doyoung was holding a big, covered bowl and carrying a tote bag on his shoulder. “We’re doing waffles.”

They all went to the kitchen, presumably to set up. Jungwoo didn’t look watch.

Half the group wandering into the kitchen and half stayed in the living room, settling in to watch whatever stupid Netflix show Ten had recommended. Taeyong came over and sat next to Jungwoo on the couch.

“Hi…” He said, patting Jungwoo’s leg. “It’s really good to see you.”

Jungwoo nodded a little and looked over at Taeyong. His leader’s face looked a little wan but other than that, he looked like the same strong, leader that Jungwoo knew.

That he missed.

“How have you been doing?” Taeyong asked.

“I’m fine,” Jungwoo said.

“You’re quiet.”

“I’m allowed to be quiet,” Jungwoo said, more sharply than he meant to. He suppressed a sigh. Sometimes he couldn’t control this latent anger that came out of him. He couldn’t control it like other things in his life.

“Of course you are,” Taeyong agreed. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

Jungwoo nodded, vigorously to keep back the tears. Those came randomly too. Through all of this, he hadn’t quite been able to get rid of them.

“Good.” Taeyong gave his knee a squeeze, a signal that he didn’t quite believe what Jungwoo was saying.

Jungwoo felt so weary in that moment. Despite sleeping in, he was tired. He could hear the other guys chattering in the kitchen and then heard the sizzle as they poured the first batch of waffles in the waffle maker. At least he’d have some relief soon.

“How are you?” Jungwoo asked, turning to Taeyong again. He realized he really wanted to know.

Taeyong gave him a warm smile. “I’m doing fine. Really. It’s important to listen to your body and rest when you can. That’s what I’m doing. But I really miss you guys and… I hope I can join you all again soon. So I can look after you.”

Jungwoo leaned away, coming back to his senses. “You don’t have to look after me,” he said. “Worry about yourself, hyung.”

“I worry about you,” Taeyong said. “I can’t help it. I just want the best for you.”

Jungwoo turned back to the TV and stared straight ahead.

Then the TV went out.

And all the lights in the apartment.

Everyone stopped talking.

“Shit!” Johnny yelled from the kitchen.

“I told you not to plug it into that outlet, hyung,” Haechan said.

“Where’s the circuit breaker?”

“I think it’s over here,” Taeil said. There was a bunch of commotion as his members tried to fix the blown fuse. Even Taeyong got up to see what was going on. How many 127 members does it take to screw in a light bulb? Jungwoo thought dryly.

Someone behind him cleared his throat.

Doyoung lifted his chin when Jungwoo turned to look at him.

“Can I talk to you?” he said, softly.

Jungwoo felt like he didn’t have any other choice. He got up and followed his hyung to the balcony. They stepped out and Doyoung closed the door behind them. Jungwoo hadn’t been out there since the day he threw Doyoung’s Tupperware over the side. The Tupperware he was currently using to puke in every day.

Jungwoo shivered.

“Yeah.” Doyoung crossed his arms. “It’s cold out here. I won’t be long.”

Jungwoo stared at his hyung. Doyoung’s hair was messy over his forehead and he was wearing his glasses. There were splotches of flour of on his shirt. Obviously, he’d made the waffle batter from scratch. Just for Jungwoo.

Jungwoo didn’t say anything.

“Look,” Doyoung said. “This has gone on long enough. I wanted to give you some space. I’m truly sorry for upsetting you. I didn’t mean to do that. I took a lot of things out on you and you didn’t deserve that. I’m apologizing, Jungwoo. I want us to put this behind us.”

Jungwoo stood there. It wasn’t that cold out but he felt like his whole body was numb. He couldn’t feel anything. Even if he wanted to.

They stood there in silence for a little while.

“It seems a lot of people have been trying to apologize to you,” Doyoung said. “But you aren’t saying anything to us.”

“I don’t have to,” Jungwoo murmured.

Doyoung pressed his lips together for a moment and then nodded. “I guess you don’t,” he said. “But I thought we used to be… close.”

Jungwoo swallowed hard. He used to think that, too. He honestly loved Doyoung and all his other hyungs and members. The way they embraced him after he came back from his hiatus and protected him made him feel more part of the team than ever.

Until all this happened.

Jungwoo tipped his head to the sky. It was gray with clouds swirling around, matching the stormy feeling in Jungwoo’s chest.

He couldn’t speak.

“I want to be that way again,” Doyoung said. “I understand you need some time, but Jungwoo, it’s been a lot of time. We’ll wait for you, but I have to warn you. We won’t be able to wait forever.”

The balcony door slid open.

“Hyung, we have a situation,” Haechan said. They heard Johnny yelling something about chocolate chips.

Doyoung gave Jungwoo a wry smile and then left. Jungwoo moved back to lean against the railing. He stayed out there and watched the guys through the glass balcony door. Most of them were in the kitchen now and the lights were back on. Soon they fixed whatever the chocolate chip situation was and Jungwoo could see them pouring batter on the waffle makers. Mark sat on the floor in the living with with Yuta. Taeyong was handing plates to Taeil and pouring glasses of water and juice. Everyone was smiling and laughing.

They were all so much happier without him.

He turned around and stared at the street.

What would happen if he really was gone? If he went right over the edge, like Doyoung’s bag?

“Jungwoo?” Jaehyun said, from behind him. Jungwoo stung around. He hadn’t even heard the door open again.

“Your face is red,” Jaehyun said, moving closer. He placed his hand on the side of Jungwoo’s face. His hand was so warm. Jungwoo closed his eyes for a moment before he remembered to move away.

“What do you want?” Jungwoo mumbled.

“Happy Birthday,” Jaehyun said wearily. “I wanted to give you this.” He handed Jungwoo a box that he was holding in his other hand. “Personally. So… I hope you like it.”

Jungwoo didn’t make a move to take the box. After a moment, Jaehyun lowered his arm.

“I’ll put it in our room.” He smiled, but his smile was so pained that it made Jungwoo’s heart clench. “You should go inside. It’s cold.”

Jaehyun left. Jungwoo stood out there until he really couldn’t feel his face and Mark opened the door, calling, “Waffles! Jungwoo, come on.”

Jungwoo took a deep breath and let it out in a white puff. Then he came inside.

Unlike the 5th floor, the 10th floor wasn’t set up for entertaining. So everyone sat around on the floor or any random place, balancing plates in their lap and trying not to get sticky syrup on everything. Talking and laughing and having a good time.

Celebrating Jungwoo’s birthday. Without him.

He ate a waffle on the couch and didn’t talk to anyone. But it was birthday and something about it made him tell himself that he wasn’t going to throw up that day. He could take one day off and spare himself the pain. It felt good but it also hurt, sometimes.

For one day, he was going to be normal. Again.

Eventually, everyone left. The 5th floor members took their stuff back down. As usual, Jaehyun left with Johnny. Mark had a SuperM schedule. Taeil had vocal lessons. Yuta had an interview.

Jungwoo was alone.

On his birthday.

He sat on the couch for a while.

Then he got up and carried the presents from the table to his room. He dumped them on the floor. He didn’t even bother to look at them. They usually didn’t get each other presents for their birthday. Cake and a little celebration was enough. Someone must have orchestrated this. More pity for Jungwoo. More gossip about him. He didn’t want it.

He sat on his bed and on top of something hard.

Jungwoo jumped up. Jaehyun’s present lay there, half crushed. Hadn’t he lost some weight? The present looked like an elephant sat on it. Jungwoo grabbed it, squeezing the sides so it popped back into place again.

He ripped off the wrapping paper.

Inside was a white shoebox. Written on top were the words: “Something to make you smile.”

Jungwoo carefully took the top off.

Inside was an assortment of random things, stuff that Jungwoo liked. Or used to like. Snoopy stickers. Some candy. A friendship bracelet, woven in black and bright green. Pictures from the past year that they’d taken behind the scenes, selfies together or pictures with the other members. One picture of Jungwoo acting like a dinosaur that Jaehyun had taken. He remembered them both laughing and laughing.

There was a phone case for Jungwoo’s new phone. A gift card to his favorite fast food place. A beanie. Ticket stubs from a couple movies they’d watched. The second place ribbon they’d gotten at a team bowling party. The name tag Jaehyun had made for Jungwoo and put on the door when he finally moved into their room at the dorm.

At the bottom, there was a note, written in Jaehyun’s handwriting.

_I’m sorry, Jungwoo. I miss you. I want to see you smile. Love, Jaehyun._

Jungwoo held the note to his chest.

It took everything in him not to burst into tears.

He closed his eyes and saw Jaehyun’s sad smile on the balcony. He heard Doyoung’s voice in his ear. _We’ll wait for you. But we won’t wait forever._

Good. He didn’t deserve them. Didn’t they get that? He had been so pissed at everyone for Jaehyun telling them about the kiss. He felt so stupid and clueless, but also guilty and ashamed for running away and worrying them all. He did everything to push them away and show them that he wasn’t their little punching bag. But they kept coming back and saying that they wanted to be there for him. That they wanted to be his friend. But Jungwoo couldn’t allow it. Because hated that they could see the real him. Always talking about him. They saw that he was weak, he was pathetic, he was anxious, he was sad.

He was sick of feeling this way.

Not on his birthday.

Jungwoo stuffed everything back in Jaehyun’s box before pushing it under his bed, with the Tupperware.

He found himself in the kitchen.

Jungwoo opened the fridge. As usual, it was empty. No one in their dorm cooked that much, so they existed on mostly take out. Whatever was around got eaten immediately. But there were a couple of extra waffles in the fridge, so he took those out. He grabbed what was left of the gallon of orange juice and the gallon of milk.

Next, Jungwoo searched the pantry. Ramen would take too long to cook, but he decided to eat a couple packets dry. He also snatched Mark’s cereal off the top shelf. He could replace it today, Mark would never notice.

Jungwoo examined what he had laid out on the kitchen table so far.

It wasn’t enough.

Going to the corner store would take too long. Jungwoo checked his watch. He only had about 45 minutes before he had to get going to practice and he needed to be sure he was done way before then.

Jungwoo sighed, taking a step back and accidentally stumbling into the trash can. The top came off. He grabbed it and was about to put it back on when he looked inside.

All of the trash in there was from breakfast that morning.

There was so much food in there.

Did anyone finish a waffle? Jungwoo saw a half eaten one right on top. Before he could think too much about it, he fished it out. It was covered in syrup, which would make it easier to eat. That reminded him to get the syrup from the cabinet.

Before he could think about it too much, he took the rest of the partial waffles out of the trash. He looked just underneath the paper plates to see if there was anything else worth salvaging. But the rest was drowned in coffee grounds, probably from Johnny’s French Press.

Jungwoo put the top back on.

He piled all the leftover waffles on a plate, drowned them in syrup, and started to eat.

There was something mechanical yet soothing about the act of chewing and swallowing. Something primal about using his hands. He licked the sticky syrup off his fingers. He stuffed the cold fridge waffles in his mouth whole. He crunched down on the noodles and chased it with orange juice straight from the jug. He crammed Mark’s cereal in his mouth by the handful and chased that with big gulps of milk. It took him less than 10 minutes to finish everything off. Then he went to the sink and slurped water from the sink, cupping his hand under the running water. Warm water seemed to work best.

He drank water until he felt like he was about to pop. Then he was ready.

Jungwoo went back to his room, locked the door, turned on his music and pulled a couple of containers out from under his bed. He set them on top of a towel on top of his bed.

He bent over and slid his fingers down his throat.

Now, he was able to vomit without too much audible gagging but there was no way to turn off the gasping and choking. No way to stop the tears that ran down his face and the spit that globbed down the sides of his mouth. It was never pretty, the way his whole body heaved and his chest hurt, his throat ached. Sometimes it came out of his nose and it burned.

It was all for the best, he told himself. It made him feel better.

But this time it didn’t.

When he straightened up and opened his eyes, he noticed the blood.

Jungwoo pressed a hand to his mouth and took a step back, staring down at his vomit in the container. It was mixed with bright red blood. His eyes went wide.

He’d never seen blood before.

Jungwoo turned around, hurrying over to Jaehyun’s mirror. His eyes were bloodshot, his face was red, he could see the blood on his lips, but he had no idea where it came from.

Somewhere deep inside?

He felt so scared.

You need to stop this, a voice inside told him, fiercely. But there was another part of him that said he couldn’t stop. He needed it. He deserved it.

Jungwoo’s chest began to burn. He started to feel dizzy and faint. He sunk to his knees and bent over, dry-heaving suddenly, but everything had already come out. His heart started to beat faster and fast. He clutched his chest. It felt like he was about to explode.

He closed his eyes tightly. This was the end. On his birthday. His whole body heated up. He collapsed forward, curling up in a ball on the floor.

He couldn’t breathe.

He waited for it to be over.

Instead, he started to cry.

He cried and cried, shaking on the floor, waiting for everything to stop, but it didn't. Horribly, thankfully, it didn’t. His whole world didn’t stop but eventually his body ran out of tears. He laid there, too exhausted to move.

He’d done his best to get rid of the old Jungwoo. Now, here he was, someone different on his birthday.

And he hated him, too.

*

A few weeks later, they had the entire weekend free and Jungwoo heard his members making plans. They were finally out of strict quarantine so a lot of them were going to visit their families for the first time in a long time. Jungwoo didn’t pay attention to all the plans, but it ended up with everyone being out of the dorm. For the first time maybe ever, Jungwoo was in the dorm by himself all weekend.

He made three separate delivery orders, ordering a ton of food, and basically binged and purged all night. Alone. No stress.

He'd told himself he was going to stop many times.

But each time he’d lied.

As scary as it was, it also could make him feel better than anything else could.

The other reason was, he couldn’t seem to stop. He told himself he was in control. But he was lying about that, too.

Late that night, after his final purge, he passed out on his bed. He didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes again, until someone shook him gently.

He woke up with a start. Jaehyun stared down at him, smiling.

“Good morning,” He said. Then he tipped his head to the clock beside Jungwoo’s bed. It was a joke. Jungwoo saw it was after noon.

“Good morning,” Jungwoo said, caught off guard, so he didn’t remember how to ignore Jaehyun. He struggled to sit up. Jaehyun sat on the edge of the bed.

“I want to spend the day with you,” Jaehyun said.

“What about Johnny?” Jungwoo asked.

Jaehyun shook his head. “Don’t worry about him. Please?”

Jungwoo swallowed. His throat hurt. The last session hadn’t gone so smoothly. Sometimes it was hard to throw up, especially when he did multiple binges in a short time frame, He had to gag himself a lot. Jungwoo rubbed the base of his throat.

Maybe he was still loopy from all the purging. Maybe it was because he had just woken up. But Jungwoo found himself saying yes.

Jaehyun waited while Jungwoo took a shower and got dressed. Jungwoo tugged a hoodie over his head while Jaehyun sat on his bed, playing on his phone. He put a beanie over his messy hair.

“I’ve got plans,” Jaehyun said with a smile, once Jungwoo was dressed. “Come on.”

First, Jaehyun took him to a 4D movie. The movie was an action movie that had them rattling and jumping in their seats. It felt magical to go to something as mundane as a movie, since coronavirus restrictions had only been lifted for a couple of weeks. Everything felt new again. They shared a big bowl of popcorn and drank soda and laughed.

It felt good.

Jungwoo didn’t find an excuse to go throw up.

After that, they took a long walk towards the Han River, window shopping and talking. First it was mainly Jaehyun talking, but Jungwoo found himself joining in. He told Jaehyun how he felt about their new choreography and the trouble he was having hitting his high note on one of the new songs on their album. Jaehyun talked through some different techniques with him. Jungwoo thought it might have something to do with the stomach acid hitting his throat, daily.

He didn’t say anything about that.

“Look,” Jaehyun said, pointing ahead at a park. “The cherry blossoms are blooming. Let’s go.”

Jungwoo smiled and followed him. He couldn’t remember the last time he saw the cherry blossoms. It felt like they were always in the studio. They didn’t have time for the small beauties of life.

They found an empty area among the cherry blossoms that was perfect for pictures. Jaehyun went first and Jungwoo crouched with Jaehyun's phone, finding the perfect angles to show of Jaehyun’s long legs as he stood among the trees. Then they did some close-ups and Jungwoo tried not to be too distracted by Jaehyun’s perfect jawline.

Jungwoo went next. Jaehyun had him lean against a tree as he snapped some pics, with the blooming blossoms right over his head. Jaehyun angled the phone just so.

“You’re getting skinny, Jungwoo,” Jaehyun said. Jungwoo half-hid behind the tree self-consciously and then pulled a branch now so the blossoms were resting on top of his head. He did a few aegyo poses.

Jaehyun laughed. “Cuuuuuuuuuute,” he cooed, taking a few pictures.

Jungwoo grinned. He’d forgotten how good it felt to make someone laugh.

After that, they stood together under the tree and took selfies together, the cheery blossoms bright and lively above them. Jungwoo had not forgotten how great it felt to be close to Jaehyun like this,

He’d missed him so much.

“Let’s post it on our Bubble when we get back,” Jaehyun said, as they looked through their pictures. “We got some really good ones. You look really handsome.”

“You could stand to take after me,” Jungwoo teased.

Jaehyun laughed, again. Jungwoo thought it felt good to be himself.

They walked along the river. It was such a beautiful spring day, people were walking and biking in droves. Couples were sitting along the riverbanks, having picnics. Jungwoo felt jealous of them but at the same time, he was happy Jaehyun found someone who made him happy. He wondered if he would ever find someone like that.

“Johnny didn’t want to have a picnic with you?” Jungwoo asked.

Jaehyun chuckled. “I think he would love to, but it would be sort of hard. Besides, he told me that I should spend some time with you. I’m grateful you agreed. I really missed you.”

Jaehyun slipped his arm through Jungwoo’s and gave it a squeeze.

“I missed you, too,” Jungwoo admitted.

This felt so good. Jungwoo couldn’t remember why he’d resisted for so long.

They sat down to dinner at one of Jungwoo’s favorite meat restaurants. Jungwoo hadn’t had any proper meat in a long time. Instead of gobbling everything as fast as he could, he took the time to savor it. Jaehyun showed him how to make his favorite lettuce wraps. Jungwoo cooked everything, making sure that each strip of meat was crispy, chewy and perfect. They didn’t run out of things to talk about. Everything felt easy and happy and normal.

Just like things used to be.

At the end of the meal, Jaehyun paid. Jungwoo followed his hyung out. They passed right by the bathroom.

“I have an idea for dessert,” Jaehyun said. “I wanna make s’mores. Johnny and I were talking about them. I really want some. We made them when I went to Boy Scout camp in America.”

“S’mores?” Jungwoo repeated. He answered in English. “Let’s do it!”

Jaehyun laughed and wrapped an arm around him.

They stopped at the grocery store for marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate bars, skewers and a food torch. Back at the dorm, Jungwoo set everything up in the kitchen while Jaehyun made a quick call in their bedroom. Jungwoo experimented with the torch, pressing the button and watching the blue flame when he heard Jaehyun call his name from the bedroom. He wasn’t paying close attention at first but then Jaehyun called him again, his voice shaky and urgent. Jungwoo turned the torch off, jumped off his chair and hurried over.

“Yes, hyung?” Jungwoo asked, stepping in the room.

Jaehyun looked up at him, his face completely white.

“Jungwoo,” he said, quietly. “What is this?”

Then Jungwoo noticed what Jaehyun was holding in his hands.

One of the Tupperware containers.

Jungwoo’s blood ran cold.

He’d never finished cleaning up from last night.

Jaehyun’s hands were shaking.

“What _is_ this?” Jaehyun asked. He sounded totally scared.

Jungwoo stepped forward and snatched it away from him. The top was loose and some vomit sloshed out over Jungwoo’s hands. He wiped them on the side of his jeans.

Jaehyun turned away and gagged. He pressed his hands over his face. “Oh my God,” he moaned.

Jungwoo snapped the lid tight.

“Jungwoo!” Jaehyun exclaimed, sounding like he was going to cry. “What’s going on?”

Jungwoo just stood there. His heart was beating so fast but at the same time it felt like glass. He thought it might shatter and leave him there, just a shell of a person. He couldn’t move.

“What—what—” Jaehyun stuttered out. He was still turned around. Jungwoo knew he was too disgusting to look at. “Why…? What is that—?”

“What were you doing touching my stuff?” Jungwoo asked, in a low, scary voice he didn’t recognize as his own.

“I dropped my phone and it slid under your bed. I saw Doyoung’s Tupperware and I… they were all full. Oh my God,” Jaehyun choked out again. His face was still covered. Maybe he really was crying.

Jungwoo swallowed hard, standing there, holding a Tupperware container full of his own vomit, calmly, while Jaehyun was freaking out. What did that say about him?

He was totally disgusting. Now Jaehyun knew.

“You shouldn’t have looked,” Jungwoo said. He felt like he was outside of his body. He could see himself standing there, completely still, pale face with too long hair covering his eyes.

“I feel sick,” Jaehyun said, crouching over a little. He took a ragged breath. “Jungwoo…”

“You should leave,” Jungwoo said.

“No!” Jaehyun straightened up and turned around. He wiped his eyes, breathing hard. “What… Jungwoo, you are _not_ okay. You’re… you’re… you’re doing this?”

Jungwoo held the container tighter. He saw himself from above, motionless.

“That… when…” Jaehyun pressed his hand against his mouth again. “When… that night… Johnny’s eggnog… did you… the food!” Jungwoo could see Jaehyun’s eyes darting around, wildly, putting the pieces together. “The missing food from the Christmas party. Oh… oh, Jungwoo, how long have you been doing this? Oh God…”

Jungwoo stared at Jaehyun, blankly. He was just going to stay up here, where it was safe. He couldn’t go back now.

“Jungwoo!” Jaehyun stepped forward and grabbed Jungwoo’s wrists. “We, we, have to tell—”

“No!” Jungwoo screamed, suddenly back in his body. He dropped the container and pushed his hands against Jaehyun’s chest, shoving him into the wall. Jaehyun gasped as he hit the wall but Jungwoo couldn’t worry about if he’d hurt him.

“You can’t!” Jungwoo said.

“Okay, I won’t!” Jaehyun said, quickly. “I won’t. I promise. I won’t tell. Jungwoo, I won’t tell. I won’t tell. I won’t tell. I won’t say anything to anybody. I promise, Jungwoo. I won’t tell. I promise.”

Jungwoo clutched Jaehyun’s hoodie. Jaehyun wrapped his arms around Jungwoo. Jungwoo’s first instinct was to pull away. But then, he allowed Jaehyun to hold him tight. Jaehyun held him and his hands roamed over Jungwoo’s back. Under his hoodie, over his ribs, across his bare back. Jaehyun’s hands were warm but they were shaking.

“Oh Jungwoo…” Jaehyun whispered. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry… I won’t tell, I won’t. I’m sorry. Jungwoo…” Jaehyun pressed the side of his face against Jungwoo’s so Jungwoo could feel his tears. He was holding Jungwoo so tight, Jungwoo could barely breathe. But it didn't matter because Jungwoo didn’t want to. “Jungwoo, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I should have noticed. I should have helped you. I’m so sorry. I’m worried about you. You can’t do this to yourself. Jungwoo, I’m so scared for you. I don’t know what to do.”

Jungwoo lost it then. He burst into tears. He’d been keeping this secret for so long and now it was out in the worst possible way to the person he loved most in the world. He felt horrible, he felt more humiliated than he had when Jaehyun rejected his kiss but the bigger part of him felt relieved that someone else knew. He was so scared. He didn’t know what to do, either.

“I’m here,” Jaehyun whispered as Jungwoo cried. As he wailed. They sobbed together. Jaehyun never let him go, even as they slowly slid to the floor. Jaehyun held Jungwoo as he cried for hours. He cried until there was nothing left, until his body and his soul was completely exhausted. He was lying on top of Jaehyun while they were both on the floor. Jaehyun’s heart had been racing the whole time. Jungwoo could feel it.

“We’ll figure it out,” Jaehyun said. Jungwoo’s eyes were swollen shut with tears and his throat was raw so he couldn’t speak. “I promise, Jungwoo. It’s going to be okay. I’m not going to tell. You and me are in this, together. Okay?”

It’s never going to be okay, Jungwoo thought. He was a disgusting, fucked up loser and now he was dragging Jaehyun down with him. He’d really screwed up and he didn’t know what to do.

Jaehyun knew his secret. And he didn’t trust that Jaehyun wouldn’t tell.

Jungwoo wished that he’d just disappear.

He didn’t see how he was going to get out of this.

Jaehyun hummed and stroked Jungwoo’s hair. They didn’t move, even though Jungwoo was sure that Jaehyun’s legs had to be asleep. Jungwoo tried to fight it. If Jaehyun fell asleep first, he could get up and go away from here. Then none of the guys would have to deal with him again. He had been so nasty and mean to them. He didn’t deserve any of them. He could walk straight into the Han River, under the twinkling, peaceful stars.

But Jaehyun kept holding him tight.

Don’t let me go, a small voice in in the back of Jungwoo’s mind begged. He knew Jaehyun couldn’t hear it.

Jaehyun never did.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jungwoo tries his best to follow Jaehyun's plan.
> 
> TW:  
> Self-induced Vomiting  
> Suicidal Thoughts

Jungwoo opened his eyes slowly and realized that he was in his bed, tucked in under the covers. Instead of his hoodie and jeans, he was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of shorts.

His throat ached. His body felt like he’d been run over by a truck.

He turned his head, slowly and saw the time. It was about 10am.

Jungwoo shot right up.

Jaehyun was sitting, cross-legged on his bed across from Jungwoo. His laptop was on his lap and he was wearing his glasses. He looked up and met Jungwoo’s eyes.

“Hyung—” Jungwoo said. His voice was hoarse and his head felt foggy and confused, but he knew they were late.

“Shhhhh…” Jaehyun said, closing his laptop softly. “Good morning. You’re awake. Don’t worry. I got us out of our morning schedules, but we have to go to rehearsal this afternoon.”

Jaehyun got up and came over to Jungwoo. He pushed Jungwoo’s messy hair off his forehead and smiled down at him, slowly easing Jungwoo to lay back again. Then he sat on the edge of Jungwoo’s bed.

“Relax…” He said, moving to rub Jungwoo’s arm.

Jungwoo settled back against his pillow, still confused. Jaehyun was smiling but he looked like he hadn’t slept all night. There were deep, dark circles under his eyes and his skin looked dry and dull.

“How do you feel?” Jaehyun asked, softly.

Jungwoo blinked at the question. How did he feel…? It was indescribable. Finally, he pointed at his throat.

“It hurts,” he managed to say.

“I’ll get you some tea,” Jaehyun murmured. “Don’t move.”

Jaehyun left the room, with the door open. Jungwoo could hear him moving about the kitchen. He couldn’t hear anything else. He could tell that no one else was home.

Jungwoo closed his eyes and tried to remember. After lying on top of Jaehyun for a long time, crying and then just breathing, he must have passed out. Jaehyun must have put these pajamas on him. He didn’t remember getting undressed.

Then the night fully came back to him. Jungwoo gasped and sat up again. He leaned over the side of his bed, flipping up the bed skirt.

The Tupperware containers were gone.

When he straightened up, Jaehyun was walking back into the room, holding a mug of tea. He handed it to Jungwoo, who was looking at him with wide eyes.

Jaehyun should hate him. He should be totally disgusted with him right now.

But he was still there.

“Drink up,” Jaehyun said, sitting on the edge of the bed again. “It’s peppermint. It’ll help your stomach, too.”

Jungwoo took a deep breath of the soothing minty flavor before he took a sip.

“Just focus on drinking that, okay?” Jaehyun scooted back so he could lean against the wall, his legs stretched out across Jungwoo’s bed. Jungwoo leaned back against his pillows. They sat there for a while in silence as Jungwoo sipped the tea. It felt comforting just to have Jaehyun there with him.

Even though he had no idea what was going to happen next.

“I got rid of everything,” Jaehyun said, after a little while.

Jungwoo couldn’t look at him, but he knew what Jaehyun meant. He got rid of the vomit-filled Tupperware containers. But not only that. Jungwoo knew the aftermath of his take-out food binge had been stuffed into the kitchen trashcan. Jaehyun probably got rid of that, too.

“I’m sorry…” Jungwoo muttered.

Jaehyun shook his head. “That’s the only thing I don’t want you to say to me, okay? I want you to tell me everything else.”

Jungwoo took a breath and nodded, slowly. He still couldn’t look at Jaehyun. He focused on his tea, cooling slowly.

“Can we talk about it a little…?” Jaehyun started.

Jungwoo bit his bottom lip. His heart sped up but he nodded, again.

“How long has this been going on, Jungwoo?” Jaehyun asked, reaching over to place his hand on Jungwoo’s knee. Jungwoo could feel Jaehyun’s eyes on him.

Jungwoo thought about it for a moment. The first time felt like yesterday and a million years ago all at the same time.

“Since…” he said, slowly. “Right before Christmas…”

Jaehyun nodded, once. “How often do you do it?”

Jungwoo’s stomach clenched. It wasn’t easy telling the truth. But when he didn’t speak right away, Jaehyun just waited, patiently. “Now…” Jungwoo finally said. “Every day.”

Jaehyun nodded, again. “Like after you eat? Or… um, are you binging a lot? I was reading about this.”

Jungwoo’s cheeks heated up. Jaehyun was actually doing research on this disgusting problem that Jungwoo had. He didn’t think random websites knew anything about Jungwoo’s situation. But he managed to answer Jaehyun’s question.

“After I eat,” he said. “Most of the time. Sometimes I binge… if I get a chance.”

Jaehyun sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. Jungwoo really wished he didn’t know. He felt so guilty for making Jaehyun stressed.

“Okay,” Jaehyun said. “Do you… like, always use your fingers? Or how do you purge?”

Jungwoo swallowed, hard. Jaehyun really wanted to get into it. He wanted to know all these terrible details. But Jungwoo knew he needed to answer.

“My fingers,” Jungwoo said, holding his right hand up. “Once, I used laxatives but that was… really bad. I’ve used a spoon before.”

“Oh…” Jaehyun said and he sounded like that detail broke him. He scooted closer to Jungwoo and took Jungwoo’s hand. Jungwoo watched Jaehyun carefully examine his hand. He had some old abrasions on it and a couple of fresher small cuts. Jaehyun brought Jungwoo’s hand to his mouth and gave it a soft kiss, before he held it in both of his.

“I don’t want you to do this anymore,” Jaehyun said, in a shaky voice, as he held Jungwoo’s hand tightly and stared into his eyes.

Jungwoo’s voice was tight with unshed tears. “I don’t want to do it, either,” he said, helplessly.

“Okay.” Jaehyun sniffed and gave him a small smile. “Let’s work on this. I’ll stay with you, okay? I’ll never leave you alone. We can get through this, Jungwoo. I just need you to be honest with me. I won’t tell anyone. I promise. I’m going to stay by your side.”

Jaehyun gently let go of Jungwoo’s hand and then cupped Jungwoo’s face. Jungwoo stared at him, feeling so scared and so relieved to finally be seen. “You’re wonderful,” Jaehyun said. “I love you.” He kissed Jungwoo’s forehead and then pulled him into a tight hug. Jungwoo wrapped his arms around Jaehyun’s waist and clung to him as he started crying. But these tears were different.

For the first time, he felt like he might actually survive this.

Jaehyun held him tightly for a long time. When they finally pulled apart, Jaehyun suggested that Jungwoo take a shower, to help him relax. Jaehyun accompanied him to the bathroom and sat on the toilet while Jungwoo was taking his shower. He hung out while Jungwoo was getting dressed. He watched Jungwoo shave and brush his hair.

He literally never left Jungwoo’s side.

“I think we should have something easy on your stomach,” Jaehyun said, as they both walked to the kitchen. They had to be at rehearsal in about an hour. “How about some porridge?”

“Okay,” Jungwoo said. He felt nervous, especially since Jaehyun knew what he usually did after his meals.

“Jaehyun?” Jungwoo asked, as Jaehyun plugged in the kettle.

“Yeah?”

“Um.” Jungwoo swallowed. He didn’t really want to know the answer but he had to ask. “What did you think… uh… when you… found the Tupperware?”

Jaehyun sucked in his breath for a moment. Jungwoo bit his bottom lip hard. He braced himself for Jaehyun to say that he thought Jungwoo was truly disgusting.

“I was really shocked,” Jaehyun said, looking over at Jungwoo. “I was really scared. I thought that it was a really desperate thing to do. I was heartbroken for you, Jungwoo. That’s when I knew that you were dealing with something really hard. It hurt my heart to think of you struggling with this all alone.”

Jungwoo swallowed hard. That wasn’t what he thought Jaehyun would say.

“It’s gross,” he said.

“Yeah,” Jaehyun said. “It is. That’s why I knew… this was a big deal. No one would do this if they weren’t sick. I don’t think you’re gross, Jungwoo.” Jaehyun looked at him, seriously. “I just think you’re dealing with something that’s out of your control. You’re gonna get better, okay?”

Jungwoo looked down at the table. That’s what Jaehyun said, but he still didn’t know how.

“I was reading…” Jaehyun said, slowly stirring the porridge after he poured the hot water in. “And… Jungwoo, what you’ve been doing… is serious. Like, it can cause a lot of stress on your heart. It can lead to heart attacks. Or… something could tear like… your esophagus? You could bleed out. There’s… a lot of side effects. It was hard to read about.”

Jungwoo clenched his jaw. He already knew about some of the side effects. The blood in his vomit. His puffy face. His sore throat. His sensitive teeth. Random stomach aches. Jungwoo didn’t need to read about it.

“I’m glad I found out,” Jaehyun said, looking up at Jungwoo, seriously. “Jungwoo, don’t worry about me. Nothing is too horrible for me. Nothing is too gross. I’d… do anything for you. Anything to prevent you from ending up in the hospital or worse. I’m glad I found the vomit. Now, stop thinking about that, okay? We have to think about… the future. How we’re going to get you through this.”

He brought a bowl of porridge over to Jungwoo once he was done and sat across from him with his own.

Jungwoo looked down at it and took a deep breath.

“You’ve never been fat, Jungwoo,” Jaehyun said. “I don’t think anyone’s even… told you that.”

Jungwoo flashed back to how his pants wouldn’t zip before the Beyond Live concert. But Jaehyun was mostly right. Jungwoo’s body had never been a major negative mark on his evaluations. He sucked at a lot of other things.

He didn’t know how to tell Jaehyun that this wasn’t really about losing weight. He wasn’t sure he fully understood it himself.

“We’ll figure it out,” Jaehyun murmured, like he could read Jungwoo’s mind. “Don’t worry.”

Jungwoo took a bite of the porridge. Jaehyun smiled at him. Jungwoo focused on that smile until he was done.

The porridge curdled up like a hard rock in the bottom of his stomach.

“I don’t think you should visit the bathroom or go anywhere alone for 30 minutes after you eat…” Jaehyun said, sliding Jungwoo a bottle of water. “Okay?”

The look in Jaehyun’s eyes told Jungwoo that this was non-negotiable.

Jungwoo nodded.

Jaehyun reached for Jungwoo’s hand and gave it another squeeze. “We’re going to get through this,” he promised.

Jungwoo wanted so badly to believe him.

*

Johnny jumped up and came over to them as soon as Jungwoo and Jaehyun walked into the practice room, where all of the other guys were already there, minus Taeyong. Jungwoo still didn’t feel great. It was like his body didn’t know how to digest anymore.

“What the fuck, Jaehyun?” Johnny said, in a low voice, but Jungwoo was still close enough to hear him.

“John, can I talk to you?” Jaehyun took Johnny’s arm and led him out into the hallway.

Jungwoo felt even sicker, watching them go.

Jaehyun was totally going to tell him.

“Uh oh,” Haechan said, from behind him. Jungwoo turned around. “Trouble in paradise.”

Mark wandered over to them. “What’s going on?”

Haechan shrugged. “I don’t really know. But Johnny wanted to go away with Jaehyun this weekend but Jaehyun didn’t want to. They’ve sort of been fighting about it. Then Johnny called Jaehyun last night and Jaehyun hung up on him and didn’t call back.”

Haechan quirked an eyebrow after delivering the latest gossip.

“Oh…” Mark said. “Sounds complicated.”

“Relationships always are.” Haechan bent over to start stretching, touching his toes.

Jungwoo took a step backwards while Mark joined Haechan with stretching in their makeshift circle. Jaehyun had said that Johnny wanted them to hang out. Had that been a lie? Was Johnny actually mad about it?

Why was Jungwoo always screwing everything up?

The porridge didn’t want to stay down. Before he knew what was happening, Jungwoo bent over and puked all over the floor.

Haechan screamed, falling on the floor out of his stretch. Mark jumped to his feet. Everyone else came running over. Jaehyun yanked open the door from the hallway, rushing towards the commotion.

“I told you he was sick!” Jaehyun yelled, putting his arm around Jungwoo. Jungwoo wanted to melt into the floor.

“Get him out of here, get him out of here, get him out of here!” Haechan shrieked.

“Jungwoo?” Jaehyun murmured in his ear, holding him tight. Jungwoo heard a lot of other things happening, but he couldn’t take it all in. Just like last night, he felt disconnected from his body. Like he was in space, floating high above.

Safe.

He didn’t remember how he got back into bed. But all of a sudden, he was there and everything felt much calmer. Jaehyun was perched on the side of his bed again.

“Jungwoo-ah…” he said, in a low, soothing voice. “Go back to sleep. It’s okay.”

Jungwoo closed his eyes and let himself be taken under again.

*

The next morning, they got up early. Jaehyun’s eyes were bloodshot. Jungwoo wondered if he had been sleeping at all. But Jaehyun didn’t complain. He only smiled.

“Let’s try this again,” Jaehyun said. They ate breakfast before the other guys. Then they sat together on the couch, watching TV while the others were getting ready. Jungwoo rested his head on Jaehyun’s chest. Jaehyun sipped coffee.

The food stayed down.

Practice started around 10am. Jungwoo nodded every time someone asked him how he was, saying he was fine. Haechan stayed away from him. Johnny stayed away from Jaehyun.

They had about three weeks to go before their comeback. Jungwoo did his best to keep up with the moves. In this song, he and Jaehyun sang the bridge together. Jaehyun tripped into him during their choreography.

“Let’s focus,” their director yelled.

“Sorry.” Jaehyun bowed deeply and stifled a yawn.

Practice wasn’t a disaster but it wasn’t great. Jungwoo felt tired himself, but he saw Jaehyun making mistakes he never made. When they sang live, Jaehyun’s voice cracked. Jungwoo noticed Taeil give Jaehyun a sideways look.

“We are not where we should be,” their director said, after practice. “Ask yourself if you want to be the reason your next comeback is a failure.”

Jungwoo took a deep breath.

They started packing up to go to their next schedules. Jungwoo was due in the studio. Jaehyun was supposed to come too, along with the rest of the vocal line, but the director asked Jaehyun to stay behind. Jungwoo glanced over his shoulder, just in time to see the director start to chew Jaehyun out for his poor performance during practice. Taeil put his hand on the small of Jungwoo’s back.

“Come on,” he said, ushering Jungwoo out.

They did some recording and practicing. Jaehyun showed up a little later, looking more tired than he had before, if that was possible. Still, Jungwoo knew his hyung was trying not to show it. He came over to Jungwoo, put his arm around him, and tried to catch up with what they were doing.

The week dragged by slowly. When Jungwoo went to sleep, Jaehyun was awake. When Jungwoo woke up, Jaehyun was awake. Jaehyun sat with him for every meal. They hung out with the other guys together. Jaehyun asked how he was doing every night. Jungwoo told Jaehyun the truth. That it was a struggle, but he was doing okay. For the entire week, Jungwoo didn’t make himself throw up. Jaehyun stuck by his side. Jungwoo made it through.

He didn’t understand how he could miss it. Forcing himself to vomit all the time.

But he did.

He felt like he was just barely hanging on.

When they weren’t practicing and when Jaehyun wasn’t talking to him, Jungwoo felt those bad thoughts creeping through. The ones that told him he was a terrible, disgusting person. The ones that told him he didn’t deserve anything, especially Jaehyun’s devotion. The one that told him he wasn’t good enough for the group. That he should spare them the misery and permanently disappear.

He didn’t tell Jaehyun about all these thoughts. Jaehyun had enough to worry about. Jungwoo could tell he was so tired. The staff was getting sick of him constantly messing up. Jaehyun’s normally beautiful voice was strained.

Jungwoo knew this was taking a lot out of him.

Something else that’s all your fault, that voice said. If your esophagus does rupture, it’s probably for the best.

These thoughts scared Jungwoo. They were too scary to say out loud.

But without the throwing up, he didn’t know how to make them stop.

After dinner on Saturday, Jaehyun fell asleep after they waited their 30 minutes.

Jungwoo watched him sleep, Jaehyun’s chest rising and falling slowly, his mouth open slightly.

After so many days baby-sitting Jungwoo, Jaehyun finally looked at peace.

Jungwoo felt guilty. He got up and went to the living room.

“Oh heyyyyyyy…” Haechan said, looking up from the floor in front of the TV where he and Mark were playing a game on the Playstation 5. “Look who it is. The Pukemeister.”

Jungwoo bristled at the nickname.

“You almost puked on me,” Haechan reminded him.

“Next time I’ll have better aim,” Jungwoo muttered.

Haechan laughed. Jungwoo sat on the couch and tucked his legs up under him.

“Wanna play?” Mark asked, turning towards him and offering the controller.

“No one could be worse at this game than him,” Haechan said. “Please put me out of my misery.”

Jungwoo shook his head. “I’ll just watch.”

Mark shrugged, turning back around. They were playing some violent fighting game. Jungwoo focused on the realistic blood and guts that sprayed everywhere as Haechan kicked Mark’s ass on screen. They trash talked each other and laughed. Mark kept losing.

Mark jumped up when there was a knock on the door. “I’ll get it. Pause. Pause.”

He hurried to the door. Haechan shook his head and put the controller down. “He’s just tired of losing."

Johnny came in, following Mark, looking agitated. Jungwoo straightened up in his seat.

“Johnny!” Haechan said, cheerfully. “Please play this game with me. I know you’re good.”

“Where’s Jaehyun?” Johnny asked, looking at each of them in turn.

“He’s in his room,” Mark said. Johnny took a step forward when Jungwoo called, “Wait!”

Everyone looked at him.

“Jaehyun’s sleeping,” Jungwoo said.

Johnny stared at him.

“You shouldn’t…” Jungwoo lifted his chin a little higher, staring back into Johnny’s eyes. His eyes were a little wild. “You shouldn’t wake him.”

Johnny didn’t say anything. Then he swore under his breath, turned around and left without another word.

Jungwoo sunk back on the couch, his heart racing.

“Oh dear.” Haechan tsked, clucking his tongue and shaking his head like an old lady. “Poor Johnny. A creature more pathetic than the Pukemeister.”

“What happened?” Mark said, settling in his place on the floor again and picking up his controller.

“You guys didn’t hear?” Haechan looked back at them. “Johnny and Jaehyun broke up. Well, Jaehyun broke up with Johnny.”

Jungwoo felt his heart catch in his throat. He had no idea. Jaehyun hadn’t mentioned it once.

“Apparently, it came out of the blue,” Haechan said. “Johnny’s been spending all his nights writing Jaehyun long messages on KakaoTalk and crying. He’s so tortured after seeing him all day and pretending like everything’s okay. I guess he did a good job.”

“Oh wow,” Mark said.

“Yep.” Haechan nodded, once. “Take this as a lesson, kids. That’s why they say… don’t shit where you eat.”

“What?” Mark said. “Ew.”

Jungwoo got up and went to the kitchen, feeling shaky. He sat at the kitchen table and stared at the fridge.

He’d noticed that Jaehyun hadn’t been talking to Johnny much all week, but he selfishly hadn’t thought much about it. Jaehyun broke up with Johnny because of him. That had to be the only reason. Because Jaehyun had to spend all his time with Jungwoo. Now Jaehyun was exhausted and getting in trouble at rehearsal while Johnny was sad and crying all night. There was no way Jaehyun didn’t like Johnny anymore. Jungwoo remembered the fond look on Jaehyun’s face when they talked about Johnny taking him out to a picnic last Sunday. No one fell out of love that fast.

This was all Jungwoo’s fault.

Jaehyun was working so hard. Too hard. He was sacrificing everything for Jungwoo. Sacrificing everything when Jungwoo knew that this was never going to work.

He wanted to throw up so bad.

Jungwoo got up, put on his shoes, and left the apartment without a word.

It was spring, so the nights were still chilly, but nothing compared to when Jungwoo was wandering around the city alone during the winter. He remembered lying in a snowbank with his pants totally soiled, wishing for the darkness to swallow him whole.

He wanted to be better than that but he couldn’t seem to manage it.

Jungwoo was going under and he was dragging everyone down with him.

Jungwoo took the Metro in random directions, not even caring where he was going before he got off in a busy area. The streets were teaming with people hanging out on a Saturday night. No one looked at him. He was invisible.

Just the way he liked it.

First Jungwoo stopped at a Taco Bell. Then a McDonald’s. Then a Subway. Then a 7-11. He took his bags down to the river. It was dark but that didn’t stop a people from sitting around on blankets, drinking, talking. Having a good time, living their normal lives.

Jungwoo walked away from them, until he found a spot that was far from the path and the torch lights and plush grass. Somewhere gravely and pitch black, where the river wasn’t too far away from him. He could hear the water moving just beneath him, waiting to swallow him whole.

Jungwoo sat down in the dirt and began to eat.

Three burritos from Taco Bell. 20 piece nuggets, two double cheeseburgers, large fries and pie from McDonald’s. Two foot-longs from Subway. The whole time he drank through his two 2-liter bottles from 7-11.

It wasn’t enjoyable. It hurt. The food was cold. His stomach didn’t seem the same anymore. It didn’t want to do this like it used to. Towards the end, it got harder and harder to swallow. He felt like he was choking. There were tears in his eyes.

He forced himself to finish.

Part of what he missed was the torture. He deserved it.

Jungwoo stood up, bent over and took a deep breath. He stared at the dirt on the ground beneath, the same dirt that was all over him. His trash was everything.

Maybe this is it, he thought. This is the time when my throat will burst, I’ll drown in my own blood and then it’ll be over.

He almost laughed when he thought about what Haechan would say if he knew how much Jungwoo lived up to his new nickname. The Pukemeister.

Jungwoo slipped his fingers down his throat.

This part was even more painful. He ended up on hands and knees, gasping for breath, his heart racing as he stabbed the back of his throat with his finger over and over, trying to get it all out of him.

All the selfish, horrible, guilty feelings that consumed him. All of this food.

He couldn’t quite finish the job.

He like he was going to burst.

When he was done, when his body had nothing left, he laid in the dirt and breathed it all in.

Kim Jungwoo, he told himself. Nobody can save you but yourself.

But he wasn’t strong enough.

His phone was ringing and ringing in his back pocket. It had been ringing for a while now. After a few more minutes of lying there, he finally had enough strength to pull it out and answer.

“Jungwoo, where are you?” Jaehyun’s insistent voice was on the other side. He sounded panicky. “Remember, you promised that you were going to tell me everything.”

He wanted to say they couldn’t do this alone. He didn’t know how.

“Jungwoo…” Jaehyun said. “Tell me you’re okay.”

He was so far from okay.

“Jungwoo…” Jaehyun’s voice broke a bit. “Say something. You’re scaring me.”

“I’m sorry, Jaehyun,” Jungwoo mumbled.

“No, no,” Jaehyun said. “That was the one thing you’re not supposed to say to me. Where are you? I’ll come get you. Tell me… I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Jungwoo didn’t even know. He managed to pull up the Maps app on his phone. He saw he was far from his dorm. It would take Jaehyun over an hour to get there on the Metro.

They needed help

Jaehyun deserved help, even if Jungwoo didn’t.

Jungwoo hung up.

He called Johnny.

“Jungwoo?” Johnny answered on the second ring.

At first, Jungwoo didn’t say anything.

He heard Johnny rustling around. Then Johnny’s voice again, gentle and soft, “Jungwoo, what’s wrong?”

Jungwoo started to cry. But somehow, he managed to tell Johnny everything.

From the first time he binged during practice and forced himself to throw up, to the real reason why he threw up after drinking Johnny’s eggnog, to what happened when he ran away after he kissed Jaehyun, to starting to throw up after all his meals, to how he used Doyoung’s Tupperware, all the way to Jaehyun finding out and trying to help Jungwoo on his own all week, to now, where he was lying on the dirt next to a pile of his own vomit, crying and talking to Johnny on the phone while Jaehyun attempted to call him about every 30 seconds.

Johnny didn’t say anything. He just listened.

“I’m far away,” Jungwoo finished. His hands were shaking as he pushed the icons on his phone to send Johnny his location.

“Okay,” Johnny said, calmly. “Okay. I’m going to get Jaehyun and we’re going to get in my car and come get you. It’s going to be okay. Just hold on, Jungwoo. Wait for us. We’ll be there in 25 minutes. We’ll be there, okay? Just hold on. Hold on, Jungwoo. We’re coming to get you.”

Jungwoo held the phone to his chest after Johnny hung up and looked up at the stars. His phone buzzed again a few minutes later. This time, Jungwoo answered Jaehyun’s call.

“We’re in the car,” Jaehyun said. “I’m so proud of you, Jungwoo.” Jungwoo could hear Johnny’s GPS in the background and clicking of his turn signal. “You’re really amazing. I love you. We both do.”

“Yeah!” Johnny said, his voice coming in faintly. He heard Jaehyun switch the phone to speaker. Then Johnny’s voice came through, loud and clear. “I love you, Jungwoo!”

Jungwoo’s heart lifted.

“Stay on the phone with us until we get there,” Jaehyun said.

“Okay,” Jungwoo said, his voice hoarse but it kept going.

“Heyyyyyy!” Johnny said. “What’s this on the radio? Crank it up!”

Jungwoo licked over his chapped lips and then smiled a little when he heard the opening lines to Kick It. Jaehyun and Johnny sang long loudly, pausing when it was Jungwoo’s parts and telling him to sing too. Jungwoo didn’t have the strength to sing but he smiled a little. He managed to join in when they sang “1-2-7 Squad.”

He could still hear the alluring rush of the river, even though Johnny and Jaehyun were being so loud. It was right there. It was waiting. But Jungwoo was more drawn to the stars.

The stars above him twinkled in the clear night sky. They provided him with just enough light. They seemed to say to him, your stars on earth are coming for you. The world isn’t quite done with you yet, Kim Jungwoo.

Just hold on.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jungwoo asks for help.

“We had to park a little way away,” Jaehyun narrated now. “We’ll be there soon. John, can you park here?”

“I don’t care. I’ll pay the ticket.”

“Yeah, but we don’t want the car to get towed.”

Jungwoo had lost his grip on the phone, but it laid next to him and he could still hear them just fine. He didn’t feel like talking, which was fine, because Johnny and Jaehyun had been talking the whole time. Saying random things, singing songs on the radio. Jungwoo was doing his best to wait for them.

25 minutes felt like a long time.

“You with us?” Jaehyun asked.

“Yeah,” Jungwoo said, in a small voice.

“Okay, we’re coming.”

He listened to them talking to each other in Korean and English, objects moving in the background. Jaehyun kept saying they were coming. Then he heard Johnny calling his name. He saw the round splotches of lights. Jaehyun ran over when they fully spotted him with their flashlights and crouched next to him.

“Hey, I’m here,” he said, smiling and Jungwoo tried his best to smile back, even though he really couldn’t.

“Can you sit up?” Jaehyun asked. Jungwoo hadn’t tried moving his body in a while. Jaehyun helped get him to a sitting position. Johnny came up behind him, sucking in his breath quickly once he spotted the mess. But to his credit, Jungwoo could tell that Johnny tried to hide it.

“Hey, Jungwoo,” he said, softly. He was carrying a bag over one shoulder. Johnny bent down, picked up Jungwoo’s phone and disconnected the call. Then he helped Jaehyun pull Jungwoo to his feet. Jaehyun wrapped both his arms around Jungwoo and walked him over to a bench that wasn’t too far away. Jungwoo hadn’t noticed.

“Sit down,” Jaehyun said. They started pulling stuff out of the bag. Johnny wrapped a blanket over his shoulders. Jaehyun somehow had baby wipes and began cleaning Jungwoo’s mouth and face, first, then his hands. Johnny uncapped a bottle of water and tipped it into Jungwoo’s mouth.

It was like they had this choreographed.

“Johnny’s car has everything in it,” Jaehyun said, like he could read Jungwoo’s mind again. “He comes prepared.”

“Yeah,” Johnny said. “I wanna live out of my car. I wanna sleep in my car. I wanna have—”

“John,” Jaehyun warned, looking over at him with a wry smile.

Jungwoo watched Johnny return the look. He was happy that he hadn’t completely ruined his hyungs’ relationship.

“Let’s just say,” Johnny said. “There’s no privacy in the dorms for… intimate moments. That’s why I have mouthwash in my car.” He handed one to Jungwoo, the kind that Johnny must have swiped from a hotel bathroom.

Jungwoo took the small bottle, poured some in his mouth, swished and spit.

Jaehyun was rubbing the blanket over his shoulders and sitting close to him. He kissed the top of Jungwoo’s head. He pulled Jungwoo close.

“How are you feeling?” Jaehyun asked.

“Tired,” Jungwoo said.

“Thank you for calling me,” Johnny said. He sat on Jungwoo’s other side. “I needed some Saturday night action.”

It was a bad joke, probably in poor taste, but Jungwoo found himself laughing.

“We’re so happy we found you…” Jaehyun gave Jungwoo a little squeeze and pulled him closer. Johnny reached around to rub Jungwoo’s back. Jungwoo leaned into Jaehyun and gave a little sigh. His whole body hurt. But it was better to feel this way in Jaehyun’s arms, rather than alone on the ground.

“You know what we need?” Johnny said, after they sat there in silence for a long moment. “We need to relax. A little TLC. A little privacy. Fluffy bathrobes. A place with a bathtub.”

“What are you thinking, John?” Jaehyun asked as Johnny pulled out his phone.

“I’m booking us a hotel room for the night.”

“Oooo,” Jaehyun said. “Somewhere fancy?”

“The fanciest.”

“Johnny is such a generous man,” Jaehyun teased, looking down at Jungwoo. Jungwoo tried his best to smile back but he was so tired.

“Give me your Black card, Jaehyun, you’re paying.”

Jaehyun helped Jungwoo get to his feet. They stumbled through the grass, down a hill, across a dark path until they finally got to Johnny’s car, which was parked in a random alley.

“Thank God it’s still here,” Johnny said. “I don’t even know how you found this place, Jungwoo.”

“I just walked,” Jungwoo said, drowsily. He felt like every drop of energy had been purged out of him. But still, he was so grateful his hyungs were there, taking care of him.

As scary as it was to admit, he needed them.

The scariest truth of all was that they were always there for him.

Even when he didn’t deserve it.

Jungwoo fell asleep watching the lights of Seoul pass them by from the backseat of Johnny’s car. When he woke up, they were in the roundabout of one of Seoul’s many five-star hotels. Johnny handed his keys to the valet attendant and walked in with them, his arm around Jaehyun while Jaehyun was holding onto Jungwoo.

The suite Johnny got was huge, like their own luxury apartment. It had a full kitchen, two rooms, a hot tub and a grand view of the city from the main room with two sides of walls made up of nothing but windows.

“Jesus, Johnny,” Jaehyun said as he walked in the room with Jungwoo, behind Johnny. “You couldn’t save this for the honeymoon?”

“What?” Johnny yelped, turning around.

“What?” Jaehyun smiled, sweetly.

Jungwoo laughed and it hurt.

The bathroom was three times the size of the one they had in the dorm. Jaehyun sat on the side of the bath and ran it while Jungwoo slowly got undressed.

“There’s jets,” Jaehyun said. “You want me to turn them on?”

Jungwoo shrugged. He peeled off his shirt. He was a mess. He didn’t realized he had sweated this much and his aim had not been great.

“I’ll turn on a couple,” Jaehyun said. “I think it’ll be soothing.”

“Okay,” Jungwoo said.

Jungwoo sat naked on the floor, waiting for the tub to fill. Jaehyun touched the water gently and looked over at him.

“Jungwoo,” he said. “What made you call Johnny?”

Jungwoo closed his eyes for a moment. Finally, the words came to him. “Because you didn’t deserve to be alone with this,” he said. “You needed Johnny.”

“I need you,” Jaehyun said. “to be okay. That’s the most important thing.”

“Haechan told me you broke up with Johnny.”

“Oh God,” Johnny said, appearing in the open doorway of the bathroom. “Haechan tells everyone everything.”

“It had nothing to do with you,” Jaehyun said.

“What did it have to do with?” Johnny raised his eyebrows and leaned against the doorway.

Jungwoo watched Jaehyun give Johnny an annoyed look. “I told you… I just don’t want any distractions.”

“Mmm hmm…” Johnny moved closer to them and sat next to Jaehyun on the edge of the tub.

"Did you want Jaehyun to hang out with me?" Jungwoo looked at Johnny. He had to know. "During our free weekend."

"Of course I did," Johnny said. "Anytime Jaehyun wants to hang out with you, I want him to hang out with you."

"Haechan said that you guys were fighting about going away for the weekend..."

Johnny pressed a hand to his forehead and shook his head. "Don't listen to Haechan."

"That... that was... unrelated..." Jaehyun said. "Johnny wanted me to hang out with you, like he said. He was perfectly okay with it."

"I was happy about it."

“You shouldn’t break up with him because of me,” Jungwoo said, looking at Jaehyun, now. He believed them but he had to make sure Jaehyun understood this. He watched Johnny take Jaehyun’s hand, lace their fingers together, and stare deep into Jaehyun’s eyes. They seemed to be talking without words.

“It wasn’t because of you, Jungwoo,” Johnny said. “We’ve been… getting more serious lately and I think that scared him. That’s why I was so shocked by that honeymoon joke.”

Jaehyun scoffed and leaned over, splashing some of the bath water at Johnny. Johnny didn’t move. In fact, he leaned in to Jaehyun closer.

“I told him that I love him,” Johnny said. “I do.”

“You shouldn’t lose that,” Jungwoo said, his heart lifting for his hyung. He’d had a crush on Jaehyun for a long time. But it was time to let that go. He could see that Jaehyun was right where he was meant to be by the way he stared into Johnny’s eyes.

“I want the best for you,” Jungwoo said, softly.

“I want the best for you,” Jaehyun said, focusing on Jungwoo again.

“Me too,” Johnny said. “The very best.”

“I think Johnny is the best for you,” Jungwoo clarified. Jaehyun started to turn red and Johnny clutched his chest.

“Listen to the man,” Johnny said, smiling at Jaehyun.

Jaehyun shut off the water. Then he stood up and grabbed Johnny’s hand. “Come on…” he said. “Jungwoo… holler if you need us. You gonna be okay?”

Jungwoo nodded. He was going to be okay.

Once they left, he slipped into the tub.

He couldn’t remember the last time he took a bath. It reminded him of being a child. He remembered how simple life was back then. How happy he was. But, even back then, there was moments where he wasn’t happy. Where he was nervous about every little thing. Where he was constantly stressed and scared.

Then he found singing. He found a home on stage. He found a place where he could be happy. Where he could excel. Now he found his dream job.

He found his family.

Just like Jaehyun, Jungwoo realized he shouldn’t be afraid to let someone love him.

Jungwoo, this isn’t going to go away, the voice in his head said. This problem, the anxiety you face, the bad thoughts, it’s something you’ll always have to deal with. But you can do something about it. You have to fight this. It starts with being honest.

Jungwoo took a deep breath. He sunk lower in the water. He allowed himself to go all the way under, so he was totally submerged.

Then he pushed his way up.

Jungwoo took a gasping breath. He might feel like he was drowning, but if he worked hard, he could make his way back to the surface.

With the help of his friends, his family, his teammates, his band.

He didn’t have to face this alone.

Jungwoo knew what he had to do.

*

After his bath, Jungwoo dried off and slipped into one of the plush bathrobes that were hanging in the bathroom closet. He found Jaehyun and Johnny cuddling on the bed in the main bedroom, watching TV. Jaehyun sat up quickly when he spotted Jungwoo.

“Hey!” Jaehyun said. “How’d it go? You okay?”

Jungwoo nodded.

“We got you these,” Johnny said, pointing to the pajama set that was on the edge of the bed. “Courtesy of Jaehyun’s Black card. Not as nice as Yong’s, but the best you can get at midnight in a hotel gift shop. Enjoy.”

Jungwoo smiled and changed into them. Then they insisted he get in the bed. They had tea and water ready for him. He sat in between them and drank it as they watched something in English that Johnny liked. Jungwoo didn’t understand most of it and he didn’t feel like reading the subs.

It didn’t matter. Hanging out with them felt cozy. Good.

“How are you feeling?” Jaehyun asked Jungwoo, after a little while. He rubbed Jungwoo’s leg.

“Fine,” Jungwoo said. “Still tired. My throat hurts.”

“I can imagine,” Johnny said. “Jungwoo… I don’t know how you do it. I haven’t puked in a long time but last time I did, I was dead for three days. It really took it out of me. And you… I… I honestly had no idea you were struggling with this. You’ve been keeping up with us and everything. You’ve been acting pretty normal. I’m impressed but at the same time I feel so bad for you, I really do.”

Jaehyun grunted and leaned over to swat Johnny but Jungwoo smiled.

“I feel bad for me, too,” Jungwoo said, smiling sadly. “It’s really hard.”

“I bet it is,” Johnny said.

“But it’s not the same as throwing up when you get sick,” Jungwoo said. “It’s not the same feeling. But… it’s still awful.”

“How could it not be?”

“Johnny,” Jaehyun said.

“No, it’s okay,” Jungwoo said.

“So what are we going to do?” Johnny said. “Jaehyun told me that… you’re not telling anybody. I’m totally onboard. You can trust me.”

“Maybe Johnny can stay with you sometimes?” Jaehyun said.

Jungwoo shook his head.

Jaehyun and Johnny exchanged a look. “That’s okay,” Jaehyun said. “I’ll always be here. I’m sorry I let you down tonight, Jungwoo. It won’t happen again.”

Jungwoo shook his head again. “No, that’s not what I meant,” he said. “You didn’t let me down, Jaehyun. I… I need help. Real help… I know you were trying your best but it’s not working. It’s too much for you and for me. I need to… tell someone.”

Jungwoo watched Jaehyun and Johnny exchange looks again.

“If that’s really what you want to do, Jungwoo,” Jaehyun said. “Whatever you want to do. I’m here to support you. We both are.”

“I think it’s really brave of you,” Johnny said. “I think it will help.”

“Who do you want to tell?” Jaehyun asked.

“The guys,” Jungwoo said, his throat dry despite all the liquids he had just consumed. “And then… our manager. Tell the company… I need help again.” His voice cracked then. He knew it was the right thing to do but it was still hard. He was sick of being the weak one in the group. But Jungwoo didn’t know what else to do.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Johnny said. “You know, I was seeing a psychologist for a while.”

“Really?” Jungwoo sniffed as the tears were falling.

“Really?” Jaehyun cut his eyes sideways over at Johnny. “I… you never told me about this.”

Johnny nodded. “I know I seem like such a fun, cool, chill, easy-going guy and I am but… I definitely went through a bought of depression when I moved here full time. I didn’t debut. They didn’t know what they were going to do with me. I felt ugly and useless. It felt like I had no future. I felt like a failure. I got really low. Really, really low.”

Jaehyun’s face grew more concerned as Johnny spoke and he took Johnny’s hand, giving it a squeeze. Jungwoo took Johnny’s hand, too.

“But I got better,” Johnny said, turning to Jungwoo. “Like you see… I never told anyone. I wasn’t as brave as you. I never asked for help until it was…” Johnny shrugged with a humorless laugh. “Yeah. I was lucky. But I wasn’t smart. Not like you, Jungwoo. So I know it’s going to be okay.”

Jungwoo smiled at Johnny through his tears and then wrapped his arms around his neck as Johnny pulled him into a tight squeeze. Jaehyun hugged them both.

“Don’t make me cryyyyyyyyy,” Johnny groaned.

They were all crying.

But it was okay.

Jungwoo knew what Johnny said was true. What Jaehyun said.

He was going to be okay.

One day.

Starting now.

*

A couple of days later, Jungwoo took the elevator in the apartment building to the 5th floor.

Johnny opened the door with a bow. “Welcome to our humble abode,” he joked. Jungwoo smiled nervously and stepped inside. He’d gotten a haircut but still his first instinct was to push his hair away from his eyes.

“You ready?” Johnny asked, touching Jungwoo’s cheek softly.

Jungwoo nodded.

“Okay well… it’s all yours.” Johnny moved to the door, slipping his shoes on. “Haechan!” he called.

“Coming, hyung,” Haechan said. He hurried down the hallway and practically ran into Jungwoo.

“Oh hey, hyung,” Haechan said, looking Jungwoo over. “I’m gonna be on JCC.” He switched to English. “Showing my English skills!”

“Come on!” Johnny said.

Jungwoo laughed a little. “Have fun,” he said.

“Roger that,” Haechan said, still speaking English as he gave a salute.

“Where did you get _that_ from?” Johnny said.

“See ya.” Haechan jumped over to the front door. Jungwoo waited in the front hall until the door clicked.

Jungwoo took a deep breath.

He went over and knocked on Taeyong’s door.

“Come in,” Taeyong called.

Jungwoo pushed the door open. His leader was sitting in bed, propped up with pillows, holding a book with his glasses on. Jungwoo looked over him, feeling guilty. He hadn’t seen much of Taeyong since he got his back surgery after Jungwoo’s birthday party. He knew Taeyong wanted to wait for all the February birthdays to be over before he had his surgery so he could celebrate with them. And all Jungwoo did to repay him was act snippy at his party and then ignore him.

Jungwoo had so many regrets.

“Jungwoo!” Taeyong’s eyes brightened immediately. “Come here.”

Jungwoo came over. Before, when he practiced talking about this, he had a lot of resolve. But now, in the moment, he grabbed his leader, pressed his face against his chest and started crying.

“Oh no…” Taeyong said, quickly putting down his book and then stroking Jungwoo’s hair. “What’s wrong? Tell me.”

“I’m sick,” Jungwoo choked out.

“Okay, okay…” Taeyong said, calmly. “I’ll call the doctor right now, Jungwoo-ah. It’ll be okay.”

“No.” Jungwoo pulled away to look at Taeyong, sniffing hard to control himself. “No… it’s more than that. I came to tell you.”

Taeyong nodded, reaching up to wipe some of the tears off Jungwoo’s face. Then he handed Jungwoo tissues from the box next to his bed.

“Tell me, Jungwoo.”

Jungwoo sat in the chair next to Taeyong’s bed. He looked over at the bottle of pills in the corner. He spotted the brace that wrapped around Taeyong’s torso.

This was so scary. How could he be so selfish that he didn’t know the extent of what was going on with his leader? He shouldn’t be burdening him with this.

Jungwoo pressed a hand against the side of his head and forced himself to go on.

“I’m listening,” Taeyong said. “It’s okay.”

Jungwoo took a shuddering breath.

“You can tell me anything,” Taeyong said. Jungwoo remembered when his hyung told him that before. He wasn’t ready then. Now, he knew what he needed to do.

“I have a problem,” he said, in a shaky voice. “I’ve been… forcing myself to throw up for… months.”

When he dared look up at his leader again, Taeyong was looking at Jungwoo with shocked, worried eyes. He reached out and took Jungwoo’s hand.

“Oh, Jungwoo…” he said.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so…” Jungwoo tried to think of the right word. “Cold to you. And everyone else. I’ve just… been dealing with this and… I didn’t know what to do. I felt like everyone was laughing at me and I was hiding… a lot. I thought this would help. I thought it was helping me but it’s not. It’s so hard. I’m sorry. I need help. I’m sorry, hyung.”

Taeyong squeezed Jungwoo’s hand and shook his head. “No… I’m so glad you’re telling me this. You… are the reason I’m here, Jungwoo. I’m here to help you. I want to help you. I want to know everything you’re struggling with. I want to be there for you. I don’t want you to be sick. We’re going to help you, okay?”

Jungwoo nodded, staring into Taeyong’s loving eyes, as tears fell down his cheeks.

“Thank you for telling me,” Taeyong said. “Thank you so much. We can handle this, okay? It’s going to be okay.”

Jungwoo swallowed, took a deep breath and then nodded.

“I love you,” Taeyong said.

“I love you, too,” Jungwoo said, before he hugged Taeyong again. He laid his head against Taeyong’s chest and listened to the gentle thrum of his heart.

Taeyong told him the same thing Jaehyun did. It was going to be okay.

Jungwoo was taking one step closer.

*

Jungwoo knocked on the door frame of Doyoung’s open door, looking at his hyung who was watching a video of himself singing with headphones on. Doyoung looked up, quickly taking his headphones off.

“Oh, Jungwoo.” Doyoung closed his laptop. “This is a surprise.”

Jungwoo smiled the best he could. He had dried his tears from talking to Taeyong, but they were still waiting right under the surface. Doing this was really hard, but Jungwoo knew he had to push through.

Reach the surface again.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Jungwoo said.

“Of course.” Doyoung pointed to the chair in the room. “Sit.”

Jungwoo dragged the chair closer and sat down. Doyoung sat on the edge of his bed.

“What’s going on?” Doyoung asked.

Jungwoo took a deep breath and summoned all his strength again.

“I wanted to talk to you about… your Tupperware,” Jungwoo said. Doyoung’s eyebrows shot up almost to his hairline.

“I’d almost forgotten about that…” he admitted.

Jungwoo had to laugh. Doyoung’s Tupperware had been constantly haunting his waking thoughts and Doyoung had pretty much forgotten. It was funny how two brains could work in completely different ways.

“Yuta did get me new Tupperware,” Doyoung said. “Don’t worry about it. Like I said before, I took out a lot of frustrations on you. It wasn’t about the Tupperware. And I’m sorry.”

Jungwoo nodded. But he forced himself to go on.

“I’m sorry, too, hyung,” he said. “I did know what happened to your Tupperware.”

Doyoung looked confused. “You did?”

Jungwoo nodded. He looked at the floor but kept talking. “After the Christmas party… I… I don’t know. I started feeling really bad. I mean, inside, like emotionally. So I… uh… I ate all the leftovers. In the middle of the night. In the dark. By myself.”

Doyoung blinked but didn’t say anything. Jungwoo kept talking.

“Then I panicked. I… didn’t know how to explain what happened. I didn’t want anyone to know. So I threw your Tupperware over the balcony.”

Doyoung suddenly snorted out a laugh and then he clapped a hand over his mouth. Jungwoo looked at him, strangely. He saw Doyoung struggle to keep a straight face but then he ended up snorting again.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just… imagining you throwing my Tupperware off a 10th floor balcony. It cost over 200 dollars…” He chuckled again and then sobered up. “I’m sorry. Yes, I know what you’re telling me is serious. Jungwoo, why did you do that?”

Jungwoo kind of wanted to laugh with Doyoung. It would be better than crying. What he’d done was pretty crazy. He’d done a lot of crazy things by now.

“I couldn’t think of any other way to hide the evidence,” he said.

“That was a lot of food,” Doyoung said.

“Yeah.” Jungwoo sniffed. “It gets worse.” He looked up and met Doyoung’s eyes again. “After I ate everything, I forced myself to throw up.”

“Oh no,” Doyoung said. “So that’s why Jaehyun found you throwing up?”

Jungwoo nodded. “Then I just never stopped.”

Doyoung shook his head, looking Jungwoo over. “I’m so sorry, Jungwoo,” he said. “Wow…”

Jungwoo scratched the top of his head and this time, gave an ironic laugh of his own. “Yeah. Um… I couldn’t have people finding me in the bathroom throwing up all the time and I didn’t want to mess up the pipes, so I switched to plastic bags. But then… I found your Tupperware again. It was like in a bush. So… I switched to using that. Throwing up in the Tupperware.”

Doyoung squinted for a moment and then his mouth dropped open, like he finally understood. “Oh… oh my God…”

Jungwoo laughed, dryly, because now he was really getting to the punchline.

“I hid the Tupperware under my bed and I would sneak out to dump them out after I used them. But then… Jaehyun found them… before I got a chance.”

“Holy shit!” Doyoung’s eyes went wide and he clapped a hand over his mouth. “Oh… Jungwoo… Jungwoo…”

Jungwoo wiped his tears because he was sort of laughing and crying at the same time. “He was really freaked out.”

“Oh, you poor baby.” Doyoung grabbed Jungwoo and pulled him into a fierce hug, so Jungwoo was pretty much an oversized baby in his lap. “Oh my God. Jungwoo! I’m so sorry I yelled at you. I had no idea. I really had no idea. This is crazy, Jungwoo. Are you… are you okay? Are you still doing that?”

Jungwoo was still laugh-crying as he held onto Doyoung. He nodded and then shrugged.

“I wanna get better,” he choked out.

“You will,” Doyoung said, kissing the top of Jungwoo’s head. “My heart is breaking for you, Jungwoo. I’ll do whatever I can for you… whatever I can.”

“Thanks for… not getting mad at me,” Jungwoo said, pressing his face against Doyoung’s shoulder.

“No… I was never mad at you. I’ll never be mad at you,” Doyoung cooed, pressing the side of his face against the top of Jungwoo’s hair. “Jungwoo-ah… it was really nice Tupperware and all but now… you don’t have to give back.”

This time they both laughed.

A real laugh.

Jungwoo felt a little closer to being okay.

*

When Jungwoo told the rest of the 127 team, he had his hyungs Jaehyun, Johnny, Taeyong and Doyoung on his side. Everyone was nicer than Jungwoo deserved, so understanding and Jungwoo felt a little ashamed that he had kept it inside for so long.

After consulting with a psychologist, psychiatrist and the leadership team, they all decided the best course of action was for Jungwoo to enter a 30-day residential treatment program. Along with Taeyong, he was going to miss the next comeback. Everyone assured him it was okay. His health was the most important thing.

Jungwoo felt regretful he was leaving the team again. It was the last thing he wanted to do.

But he knew it was the best thing he could do to stay alive.

As Jungwoo was packing up his room to leave the dorm, he discovered the pile of presents from his birthday that he’d never opened, just kicked in the corner of his closet. He opened them each, one by one. He’d gotten some cologne, a nice scarf, a selfie light for his phone, a nice wallet, little things that made him smile. Mementos from people who loved him.

Jungwoo thought he might not deserve them, but he was blessed with them. The best team in the world. 1-2-7 Squad. They always stuck by his side.

He was so grateful.

Confessing had not taken away the urges, the way he longed to slip back into his habit each and every day. But with the help of his NCT 127 family, he was holding on. He hoped the treatment program could help him better face this disease head on.

So he could return to all of them a better, stronger Kim Jungwoo.

Jungwoo looked up when there was a knock on the open door.

He saw Lucas smiling down at him.

“Hey,” Lucas said, lifting his chin.

“Hey!” Jungwoo jumped up from where he was looking over all the presents.

“You leaving today?” Lucas asked, walking over to him.

“Yep.”

“Oh.” Lucas stuck his hands in his hoodie pockets. “I’m gonna miss you.”

Everyone knew by now, not just the 127 unit. But Jungwoo knew that was for the best. They were part of his family, too.

“I’ll miss you too, Lucas,” Jungwoo said.

“I was going to ask you for a smoke break,” Lucas said. “But I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Jungwoo made a face and shook his head. “I think I quit.”

Lucas nodded, seriously. “Yeah, maybe I should quit too.” Lucas sighed for a moment. “It’s just that… it really does help me… not eat too much.”

Jungwoo stepped closer and wrapped a hand around Lucas’s thin wrist. “Don’t worry about that stuff. If you do… make sure you talk to someone. Promise me?”

Lucas held his gaze for a moment before nodding.

“Hey, remember what you said?” Jungwoo said. “When we were talking… about me fighting with my hyungs? You said that we would make up… nothing is forever. You were right.”

Lucas paused and then shook his head. “No, I don’t remember that,” he admitted.

“You were right,” Jungwoo said, again, grinning. “You’re smart.”

They smiled at each other for a long moment. Jungwoo enjoyed looking into Lucas’s large, dark eyes.

“Know what, Jungwoo?” Lucas said. “When you get back… do you wanna get dinner with me?”

Jungwoo felt his whole body flush. He took a deep breath through his nose and nodded.

Lucas stepped forward, pulling Jungwoo into a tight hug. Jungwoo hugged him back, closing his eyes until they slowly pulled apart.

“I’ll be waiting for you, cutie,” Lucas said, giving Jungwoo a wink before he left.

Jungwoo pressed his hands against his cheeks and told his heart to calm down.

But it felt good that it was racing for a different reason.

“Hey,” Jaehyun said, walking in the room a little while later after Jungwoo had returned to his suitcase. He sat next to Jungwoo on the floor.

“Is Johnny gonna move in while I’m gone?” Jungwoo asked.

Jaehyun grinned and shook his head. He wrapped his arm around Jungwoo. “Nope. That bed is for you only. The best roommate in the world.”

Jungwoo smiled. “Good.”

Jungwoo reached under the bed and pulled out the only thing that remained there. Jaehyun’s present, the shoebox full of things to make Jungwoo smile. At first, he had ignored it.

Now he looked at it often.

He set the shoebox in his suitcase, but not before taking something out.

“I want you to hang this up,” Jungwoo said, handing it to Jaehyun. “So it’s the first thing I see when I get back.”

“I will,” Jaehyun promised. “It’ll be right here waiting for you. I’ll be here, waiting for you. We all will.”

“Good.”

Jaehyun held up the name tag with a grin. The same name tag that Jaehyun had made and placed on the door to welcome Jungwoo home the first time.

Back then, it was the symbol of a new beginning. This time, when Jungwoo returned, he was going to be stronger than the first time. He was going to be prepared. He was going to know that he could lean on his friends, his family. He was going to be ready for this crazy, stressful, rewarding, scary, wonderful, musical, beautiful life with the best roommate in the world.

Ready to start again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone,
> 
> Thanks for reading. This story is really sad but it was a joy to write. I hope you enjoyed it as well.
> 
> Although Johnny and Jaehyun are dating in the story, I didn't tag any ships because I wanted this story to be about the power of friendship. I tried to show that especially through the bond between Jungwoo and Jaehyun. I'm so grateful that Jungwoo figured out that the people he thought were against him were the ones who were truly in his corner the whole time. We should all be so lucky to even have one friend we can truly rely on. That would be more than a lot of people ever have.
> 
> I've never had an eating disorder, but I've done a lot of research about them. I didn't want to glamorize it because this is a tricky and dangerous disease. My heart goes out to anyone who is struggling with one. It can be a very scary and lonely place to be. I hope you can reach out to someone, like Jungwoo did. Here's a link with international resources: https://www.feast-ed.org/worldwide-list-of-ed-advocacy-organizations/
> 
> Thanks to anyone who's given me kudos. Leave a comment if you can. I'd love to read your thoughts. Thanks to everyone who's already left comments. You truly make me so happy.
> 
> Happy New Year! Here's to a better 2021!
> 
> \- Love

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I really adore your comments. Thanks for leaving them for me. 💚  
> You can find me here:
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/cherrysodapop14)
> 
> [CC](https://curiouscat.qa/cherrysodakpop14)


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